Doctor Watson - Sentinel
by Lil Nezumi
Summary: (S1 BBC, Episode 02, RE-WRITE!) Sentinels and Guides have been in existence for years. Newly activated individuals must go for training or even re-training in their chosen fields, in order to be fully functioning members of society. Dr. John Watson doesn't want any old kind of training.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: **Doctor Watson - Sentinel

**Characters:** Sherlock/John (based on BBC version, slash implied, non-graphic)

_**MY Inspiration:**_ Sherlock-BBC (all T.V., Movie or Book version), Sentinel (T.V. Series)

**Disclaimer:** This is my standard disclaimer; I don't own anything in regards to the sources of _**MY**__**Inspiration**_. All publically recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

All the characters, worlds, base concepts or general ideas are just a bit food for the writing bug. This story is pure fiction and is in no way meant to copy or reflect real life, events or people, should this happen then obviously it is pure coincidence.

**Warning: **See author profile for preferred pairing type.

**Summary:** (S1 BBC, Episode 02, RE-WRITE!) Sentinels and Guides have been in existence for years. Newly activated individuals must go for training or even re-training in their chosen fields, in order to be fully functioning members of society. Dr. John Watson doesn't want any old kind of training.

**Speech Legend: **(This is the standard by which I write my stories and therefore you will not see this repeated in future chapters)

"Normal"  
'_Thoughts_'

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

**CH 1**

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

"You must understand Doctor Watson," the clerk at the Sentinel Centre (SC) said, as she shuffled the papers and putting most away in his file. "Re-training is available to you, but surely you're interested in learning something that will be less taxing on your newly enhanced senses."

"Look," John explained. "I need to be retrained in this field so that I may better endure my flatmate's eccentricities. I need to be better prepared for the eventual day that he brings home pickled body parts for his numerous experiments because I don't believe that his curiosity will be curbed by the fact that I'm a Sentinel, in fact I know it won't. If I don't get used to the extremes presented in the Forensic Pathology field then I know that I'd be quite useless in my regular field anyway. I can't return to be a surgeon or work on live bodies because of the trauma I received to my left shoulder. I have ghost twinges in my left hand, but I can certainly work with the dead. I can still be a General Practitioner, too, in some locum clinic, but I need the intense training for forensics first because of my senses."

"But..." the clerk was stumped and her immediate supervisor appeared to take over for the poor confused girl. "What about your Guide? Doesn't he or she have a say in what you're choosing?"

"Leave it Beth," her supervisor, Doctor Matthews said. "I'll take over from here, you run along for your break now."

"Yes sir," Beth said and looked back at John in confusion about his specialized request for re-training.

Doctor Matthews looked at the thirty something Doctor John H. Watson, who had just entered their centre four days ago to declare that he was a partially activated, Sentinel. A status that was rare and unquantifiable since those that made such a declaration were usually the ones that the romantics talked and wrote stories about. It involved more than claiming their Guides, since those that declared such a status were all about courting their Guides first.

"John," he said. "I have to ask, are you sure about this?"

John sighed and nodded. "I'm a Doctor and my certification is still valid. I do want to continue in my field, but I don't know what else to do. I could apply at a private or community clinic, but I do need to be free from schedules at the moment. If I can be re-trained in pathology and forensics then I'd be of greater use to my flatmate."

"A Sentinel would never retrain that way to please someone that wasn't their Guide," Doctor Matthews observed. "Are you sure that he isn't?"

"We haven't discussed the matter," John replied and looked away to gather his thoughts. "I don't want anyone pushing or urging him into any kind of bonding thing with me. If he is my Guide, then I'll be the one to let him know because it's my business to do so, as his Sentinel. However my activated senses are not constant yet, so if I could re-train in what I can for now, I believe it would be for the best. I won't be able to, if we've developed some kind of routine in the future."

Doctor Matthews sighed and prayed, '_Save me from stubborn Sentinels._' He nodded and made several notations in John's file. "All right then," he said. "We'll contact you with the course information, dates and times, but you must be present at all of them or else you'll be forced to pay for them yourself." He shuffled the papers and said, "You're already a medical Doctor and a surgeon, so you won't have many more courses or seminars to attend considering how much you already know of the human anatomy. You'll be retested in it too. Much of the courses will be to re-train you with the use of your senses, if you want that knowledge to count in your chosen field and in the courts of law. We'll send you the schedule of those dates and times to the email address we have on file, is it still valid?"

"Thank you, yes it is," John said. "It's probably best to do it that way." He was relieved that he didn't have that many more hoops to jump through. He still needed to move out of the veteran boarding house, but before that happened he knew that he'd need to clean 221B from to bottom first.

'_Fake drugs bust or not Sherlock was definitely concerned,_' he thought. '_I'll not put up with that type of temptation in our flat either._'

"You should discuss your situation with your flatmate," Doctor Matthews advised. "Can he help you, if you do zone?"

"Yes, he's recorded as an active Guide with the Guide Council (GC), I believe," John said, as he put on his coat. "He's helped me before, but I don't believe that I've ever really zoned deeply. He didn't have to do much to get me out of one, so far."

"_So far_ being the key words here," Doctor Matthews said and he held out his hand. "I'll do my best to get this done as soon as possible for you. The schedule will be erratic and it would be best for you to do some of the study independently for the certification tests. You should mention this to him anyway and we'll need his contact information in case you have difficulties during the sessions. It would be ideal, if he attended some of the more intense forensic classes with you though, do you think he'd be interested?"

"I know a few people that can get me into the University Libraries to study independently," John said, as he shook the man's hand before getting ready to leave. "It's the practicals that I'm missing." He paused to think about the last question. "He might be interested, but it's something that I'd have to discuss with him before all else."

"We can arrange for you to do assisting work in various police morgues, unpaid though," the other Doctor said. "That should help you with getting your senses acclimated to that kind of environment. If you need work, we can place you in a local clinic for the time being. May I ask why a change in specialty?"

"There is a demand for it and I find myself curious about that particular field of study," John explained.

"I don't quite believe you," Doctor Matthews said and he waved it away. "I don't need the whole truth. Not here. It's fine, now off with you so we can set this up for you, the sooner the better, eh? Oh, if you need a job, contact us, and we'll set you up at a locum clinic near you, but only for half-salary, I'm afraid because you're opting re-train." He handed the newly registered Sentinel his business card.

"I truly appreciate that, thank you," John said, as he tucked the card into his wallet for future reference. He left the building feeling much better about a lot of things. He still had to finally move into Baker Street, but at least the rent issue had been resolved. He wasn't too sure about letting his flatmate experiment with his senses, though.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

**Flashback - Dim Sum & Fortune Cookies**

Sherlock ate like he'd been starving for a while, which was entirely possible since he'd told John that he rarely ate when on a case. "I don't normally eat," the younger man said. "Because it takes away important brain functions for my cases and I can't be bothered to fix anything to eat during such a time anyway."

"You do know that I'm an actual Doctor, right," John said and received a look that said, '_Of course I know, I'm not an idiot_.' He returned the look and said, "I'm not your parent and you're a grown man, but I do know that from time to time, I may harp on the fact that you don't eat. You did say that we should know the worst about each other before we move in together. A person's health is something that I notice."

"So I did," Sherlock said and leaned forward. "Tell me more!"

"I like things clean and tidy, but am willing to confine it to my designated bathroom and bedroom," John said. "You clean your room and on-suit, since I know that you've already claimed them. We'll both keep the kitchen and main room clean."

"How could you possibly know that I...," Sherlock asked, as he looked in the direction of the bedroom he'd claimed. He was fascinated about that knowledge since the good doctor hadn't been in the flat more than a couple of times in the last two days. They interacted mostly in the sitting room among the younger man's belongings that still haven't been moved or properly stored away.

"This place smells of you, more than any previous owner or even Mrs. Hudson," John informed him. "I took a quick look around while waiting for the GPS locator to boot up and track the Pink Lady's phone that the murderer had."

"About your senses," Sherlock said. "Can I test you?"

"What?" John choked on his dim sum. "What are you talking about?"

"Can I run some tests on your senses," Sherlock looked like a child in a candy store with fingers visibly twitching. "No Sentinel has ever been re-tested by the Centres. I've always wanted to do some tests of my own, but most unattached Sentinels at Uni were touchy about my questions. The SC doesn't keep records of which sense are the strongest per Sentinel, unless you're in the military," he paused and then continued. "Can I look at your military Sentinel testing records? What level are you? Not that it matters, since the levels don't truly cover everything about Sentinels and Guides anyway."

"About that," John said, after he'd sipped some weak tea. "I was never tested by the military."

"What, but you're..." Sherlock looked at the man and then questioned. "You were never tested by the military for your activated senses! That's not possible, how is that possible?"

"I activated long after I was discharged," John told him truthfully. "I activated as a civilian and the SC is not aware of it, either," he held up hand and continued. "Only because I have not told them anything about it."

Sherlock opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it. He didn't know how to respond to that at the moment, so he took a mouthful of his noodles to ponder what he'd just learned. He looked at John and asked, "Are you going to tell them?"

"I have to," the Doctor replied. "I want to be re-trained in the use of my active senses in my chosen field. They'll also want to rate me on that scale of theirs too." He shrugged because he didn't believe that it mattered where someone was on the testing scale they used to gauge the Sentinel levels.

"Can I be there when they test you," Sherlock asked.

"I'm not sure," John said. "My records at the SC show me as being GNA with a low probability of activation. They may believe that because I activated so late that I'll be a low level Sentinel anyway and maybe they'll leave me alone, but I just don't know. If they do choose to test me, I won't mind you coming along with me, if you want to be there."

"Do you believe that you're a low level Sentinel," Sherlock asked.

"Don't rightly know," John said, as he inhaled the spicy scent of their meal. "I can tell you that it's pretty cool smelling the distinct spices used in our meal, but it's not quite fun to smell the fact that the cook in the Restaurant had stepped in something foul, three days before cooking our meal."

"You're still eating it," Sherlock pointed out. He had the look of someone studying a specimen under a microscope, while wondering just what it was and how it did what it did.

"I'm hungry from all that running around tonight," John replied with a grin. "I could also be wrong about that little fact. It could have been some other person or customer there that had the problem with their shoes. I'd rather not think about it anymore at this point."

"Fascinating," Sherlock said. "So can I test you?"

"I'll think about it," John said. "I have to go to the SC first. If they choose to test me, then I'll get a copy of their results for you. How does that sound?"

"Boring," Sherlock replied with a small pout. "I wanted to come up with the parameters myself."

"If they plan to test me, I'll text you and let you decide whether to show up or not," John said. He then told his new friend another option. "If I bring back the results, you'll get to see what they tested me on, how they did it and then you can choose a different series of tests, but nothing extreme." He felt like he was going to regret this. "I get to veto any test that I feel is unsafe or if I've zoned too many times in one day, is that clear?"

Sherlock waved his concern away. "Yes, yes, so long as I can do something interesting with those senses of yours. So when do you think you can move in?"

"I'll move in, after your clutter is put away in some semblance of order," John said. "If it's not done within the next five days, then I'll be the one doing it without your input or tolerate any complaint after the fact, deal?"

"Deal," Sherlock replied with a grin. He opened up his cookie and read, "_Truth is an unpopular subject. Because it is unquestionably correct._" He humphed and said, "That was so obvious."

John chuckled and then before he read his, he said, "Care to guess?"

"Something about good fortune coming your way," Sherlock told him.

"_There is a prospect of a thrilling time ahead of you_," John read. He laughed and asked, "You mean there's more to come?" They both laughed, as they put away their takeaway boxes and parted ways for the next little bit.

Sometime in the morning, days after John had visited the SC, who hadn't tested him in his senses because they actually assumed that his level was low on their registration scale, he wasn't surprised to find the flat empty of his flatmate and only some of the clutter had been put away. There had been a note on the table telling him that his new flatmate had left London to follow up a case he had in the country and that he'd be back in a few days.

The good doctor had shown up that day, with a bag full of cleaning supplies just in case. He whirl-winded his way through the flat, his upstairs room and the bathroom that he'd claimed were cleaned to near hospital standards. He tackled the kitchen and re-sorted most of Sherlock's papers and books, in order to make room for his own novels and study material on the bookshelves. There were twelve available shelves floor to ceiling on either side of the fire place. He only wanted a couple within reach for himself.

He left and then came back that same day with a rented lorry to unpack much of his meagre personal possession in order to settle quickly into the new flat. Now all he had to do was to wait for his bed to arrive, before fully settling in at 221B Baker Street.

The bed he'd ordered was a queen size. An unnecessary indulgence, but one that he felt he was entitled to and that he knew he'd need should he ever claim his Guide. At least it was one of those new split box-spring things that worked well to get the whole of it up the two flights of narrow stairs. The large deep foam mattress was more manageable since it was more pliable.

Little did he know that he may come to regret the purchase, financially speaking!

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

**Flash Forward - About Few Months Later**

For the past month, John had been attending sessions to upgrade his Doctorate to include a specialty in the Forensics field. When he attended the pre-paid sessions, paid by the SC and the Government, he wasn't making any money. Even his small pension was not going to be nearly enough in the near future, especially to get the bare necessities to live on.

Perusing one of the morning's newspapers that they normally received, he noted that there was a Chinese exhibition of an ancient set of clay teapots at the British Museum. The exhibit included a display of the ceremony that the ancient people used to do back in the time of the Ming Dynasty.

John was amused to read that, as he drank his own weak tea without milk because the milk had been used in some experiment or other. The tea was also very weak because he'd been managing his tea bags in order to get the most out of them before going to the store for more. He hadn't been able to purchase proper tea that required the lovely strainer with the porcelain handle that his mum had given him long ago when he'd been accepted as a pre-Med student.

He currently had a small lull in his re-training schedule now. He was grateful for it because he needed to go get some basic groceries, including some Sentinel friendly cleaning supplies, as his senses were becoming more troublesome the longer he lived with Sherlock. His roommate was sitting in the room with him, pondering on whether the case of some strange missing diamond was worth the effort to turn his mind to the subject or not.

"I'm leaving now," John said. "We need a few things."

"Boring," Sherlock replied.

"Boring or not, they're still necessary," John said in a growly, but not angry tone of voice. "Later!"

Sherlock sat in his chair, as he heard the door shut. He glared at the computer screen bored with the explanation and the situation that had been presented him about the missing diamond. He had several different people request his help for their petty little mysteries, but he was very selective in his choices. He knew about John's concern for money, but truly the _only_ interesting one, so far, with the large enough pay-off needed to ease his John's mind, was in London and had come from someone he absolutely detested.

Apparently someone had entered a high-rise financial building and left some kind of graffiti behind. The interesting part of that one was the fact that it was an extremely secure building and the task of vandalism would be difficult and tricky, even for the above average thief. Only nothing was stolen, just some type of graffiti left behind, on the _inside_ of an extremely high security office too.

The other source of marginal interest was a mystery of something missing called the Jaria diamond, which had sounded interesting, but unfortunately, they'd both have to visit Dubai in order to solve that particular case. The world's only Consulting Detective and Guide, Sherlock wasn't going to interrupt his flatmate's schedule for educational re-training just to go visit an exotic location no matter how interesting the case sounded.

They could have gone, but he knew how the SC operated. They'd have taken away John's financial support, which was something that he wouldn't deny his flatmate. He refused to leave the country without John because he'd felt that the man would come to trouble without him in the vicinity. The reason and feeling for that defied his careful, logic filled mind, which was another perfectly good reason to remain where they were. He put it down to the Guide in him, needing to protect the Sentinel, despite the lack of a bond between the two of them.

Plus the re-training was another way for the SC to test their Sentinels that had never taken government positions. Not that he mentioned any of this to the good Doctor. He just hacked their records to track how well Dr. Watson was doing in his courses and to review the man's file. So far the man was quite run of the mill and mediocre in Sentinel measurement levels.

That had been a surprise to him, since whenever John was on a mild case of criminal chasing with him, the man's senses were very sharp. They were much sharper than his thin records indicated and he wondered why that was.

He had to acknowledge that they hadn't tested him fully, though. The notes related to his John's levels were only based on what the others observed when the doctor was in class and learning to use his senses for his civilian life.

The younger man's solitude and contemplation of that morning, had then been suddenly interrupted by an exotic messenger, completely kitted out like a true Sihk warrior, typical curved sword and all. He'd already declined the diamond mystery once, but now they were trying to persuade him in the most physical manner.

Sherlock sighed, stood up and said in the man's presumed native tongue, (...I said no. When I say no, I mean no...)

(...My lord does not recognize your reply...) The warrior said. (...If you do not come with me, my instructions are clear. You follow me or you die...) He lunged forward and made an honest attempt to kidnap Sherlock, who only dodged out of the way.

(...Declined, in both cases...) Sherlock said. (...Kindly show yourself out or...) He never had the chance since the man shouted at him.

(...THEN YOU WILL DIE!...) He swung his sword and the fight was on in earnest.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

Meanwhile, John was having difficulties paying for his purchases at the self-service chip and pin machine at the local Tesco. He was first in line to the device. He started out just fine, but soon nearly every other item had the obnoxious machine stating, "Item not scanned. Please try again."

John repeated the motion of scanning, only at a slower pace.

"Item not scanned. Please try again."

The voice of the machine was a little loud and when he looked behind him, it seemed that a small line was forming, since many had noticed that he was almost finished with his purchases.

John looked back at the machine and mumbled, "You think maybe you could keep your voice down?"

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

Back at the flat, Sherlock was physically and vocally telling the warrior to piss off. It wasn't working, since he fell onto the table, but he moved away quickly, so that the blade nicked it instead of his arteries.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

At the market, John was now attempting to pay for the stuff he'd scanned. He was flustered because his card was not working.

"Card not authorized, please seek alternative methods of payment." He blushed and heard everyone behind him sigh. Most moved to another line to pay for their items, while he tried again. "Card not authorized..."

He put his card away and then looked through his wallet in desperation for emergency change or something of that nature. The machine had no card, but it still said again. "Card not authorized. Please seek..."

"Yeah, yeah," John yelled at it. "I've got it. All right!" It was at this point that a clerk intervened and he apologized. "I'm sorry. I'll just..." He waved at the door and the clerk nodded.

"We can hold onto your bagged items, if you think can come back to pay for them within the next half hour," the young clerk said.

"Yeah," John said. "I can do that, yeah...uh... I mean please!" The clerk nodded and placed the purchases on hold with a switch of a key in order to let others pay for their items. While John quickly left the Tesco to return to his flat, hoping that Sherlock had cash on him or something.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

Meanwhile, Sherlock had managed to subdue his attacker. He huffed and said one last time, (...I said no, not at this time. So take that message back to your Lord...)

'_If you still can,_' he thought with a pleased smirk.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

John quickly returned to 221B Baker Street and immediately scented the sweat that another person had left behind in their flat. He turned to his flatmate and said, "You're not fooling me. Who was here and what did they want?"

"Better than a blood hound," Sherlock grinned. He secretly loved it when John noticed something with his senses. "Just someone that wouldn't take no for an answer," and then he noticed that his flatmate came back empty handed. "You took your time."

"I didn't get the shopping," John confessed.

"What?" Sherlock looked surprised. "Why not?"

John sighed and said, "Because I had a row...in the shop...with a chip and pin machine."

"You had a row," Sherlock looked perplexed, but was grinning at the same time. "...with a machine?"

"Sort of," John answered, as he rubbed the back of his head. "It sat there and I shouted abuse at it. Listen, have you got any cash?"

"Take my card," Sherlock nodded to the wallet on the table. It fell out of his pocket during his fight, but somehow it landed on the table, as though he had placed it there.

John rifled through the wallet and placed the credit card in his own. He'd experience in copying Sherlock's writing by now because the crazy man had insisted on it, in case of emergency, which would be useful, such as for today and the irritating man had also learned John's own writing for a similar purpose.

"You know, you could always go yourself. It might stop unwanted company from visiting," John suggested in a half-hearted tone.

Sherlock just looked at him like he's some kind of experiment.

"Hmph," John noised. "What happened about that case you were offered? The Jaria diamond, wasn't it?"

"Not interested," Sherlock said, as he pushed the swordsman's sword further under the couch and away from John's sharp eyes.

John spotted the nick in the table and knowing that it didn't belong to either of them and that it hadn't been there before he'd left to pick up some shopping. He said, "Mrs. Hudson's going to make us pay for property damage and I saw that. I'll just pick up some brackets for it with the shopping, shall I? It should look well on the wall, maybe above the mantle?" He grinned at the younger man who sat there open mouthed in surprise, before he left with a volley of, "I'll be back in a few minutes."

Sherlock then picked up John's laptop, keyed himself into it quite easily and began to browse the older man's recent searches.

John returned about ten minutes later with the same bagged groceries that he'd been attempting to buy for a good part of the morning. He walked into the kitchen and dropped the bags on the counter with a huff. He took off his jacket and started to put much of it away, although some stayed out so he could label them as, '_**NO!**__', 'Not for experiment!_' and '_Stay away, Sherlock!_'

It worked some of the time, which was all right by him, since his fickle flatmate replaced the used items some of the time too. Although, what he replaced it with was the wrong thing most of the time like a good English Earl Grey tea for some weird mix of Green Tea and Pomegranate. It was sweeter and tasted more like grass than a true tea blend, to John's mind. He still drank it though because he didn't want to discourage the younger man from replacing the items he appropriated for experimental purposes.

He looked up and noticed that his flatmate was surfing on the web. He knew that he was surfing, due to the lack of keys clicking. "Is that my computer?"

"Of course," Sherlock said.

"What," John asked. "Why?"

"Mine is in the bedroom," Sherlock stated, as if that explained everything.

"...and you couldn't be bothered to go get it, after you dumped that foreigner's body out of the window," John said. The other man just looked up and blinked at him with comment, before returning to what he was reading.

"It is password protected," John said.

"In a manner of speaking," Sherlock told him. "Took me less than a minute to guess yours...Not exactly Fort Knox is it?"

John paused in his food labeling. "You guessed my password?"

"It was one of forty-three," Sherlock explained.

"What," John came into the living room. He needed to hear this.

"Types of password, that people like you commonly use," Sherlock said. "There are only forty-three."

John huffed and said, "What does that mean? '_People like me_'."

Sherlock looked at him and said, "Ordinary."

"Stupid," John said. He returned to the kitchen to put away the rest of the food and sundries. "Better change it, I guess."

"There's no point," Sherlock said softly. Too softly for a normal human to hear, but he was curious about his flatmate's hearing abilities. He kept a mental record of most sense reactions that he'd seen the Doctor exhibit. He still hadn't been able to outright test him, but he was storing up potential experimental procedures for the future based on his current observations.

"No," John replied normally. "I suppose not."

Sherlock grinned and made a mental note. '_Hears sub-vocally, check. Range of noise to be further tested. Note to self, buy a dog whistle._' He returned to his perusal of the internet and came across the following web address . . "Interesting," he said. "I see you've started a blog..."

"You...you're reading it," John asked in a wary tone.

"_Imperious_', not a word I've ever been called before," Sherlock said. "Curiously, I don't dislike it."

"I said some nice stuff about you too," John defended his choice of words. "I said you knew some good restaurants."

"You're right about the public school, but I _do not_ look twelve," Sherlock said in a slightly offended tone. He even glared at the computer screen.

"No, not with your height," John said. "You do have that twelve year old, impish quality though."

"What," Sherlock looked up from what he was reading, only to have the computer snatched from his hands. He huffed and said, "You didn't even write about being an activated Sentinel."

"Didn't need that advantage advertised to the criminals you intend to drag me along to find or chase, now did I," John said, as he climbed the stairs to put away his laptop in his room.

Sherlock mentally agreed and the laid back on the couch to calculate when he'd likely next be able to access his flatmate's portable computer.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

**TBC...**

(...i...) Most of the conversations in this story will be direct from the episode, as I'll try to find a way to change or alter the path of this story. This story is just a basic re-write with a few new elements incorporated and only because I find the idea of the Sentinel Universe mixed with Sherlock to be a strangely appealing one.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** See chapter one, from here on this will not be repeated.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

**CH 2**

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

John had just returned back to their flat after a night seminar for Sentinel students. It was his last one for the rest of the month or so and his independent studies had caught him up to the proper levels. It wasn't that hard, since his experience in the Army counted for much of the anatomical pathology background information he needed. Pathology had been required from time to time, in order to determine the causes of some of the soldiers' deaths because not all were caused by combat action. Some soldier deaths were recorded as being actual war crimes against the Allied soldiers, mostly done to make '_examples_' of them to the enemy.

Now, though, he could essentially finish the re-training program, if he chose to attend full time for two months under the SC criteria, which basically accelerates the learning by use of a Sentinel's abilities. (...i...) Unfortunately, he'd have to have a Guide for that process and he had yet to mention any of this to Sherlock, since the man wasn't even aware that he had been guiding John out his fugue states. The re-training could be put off for only a couple of months, for a bonding period they told him, but not much longer than that.

His financial worries had increased though and he often fingered the card that Doctor Matthews had given him, in order to obtain a part-time clinical job. He hadn't mentioned it to Sherlock, yet, but it looked like it would have to be soon, since the number of bills hadn't decreased. His phone and internet access were important to maintain, but there were others, like the electric and heating bill since they were still in technically the winter months.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

The day after the chip and pin machine incident, in April, John collapsed in his chair and sighed. He fingered this day's mail and noticed another bill had been added to the ever growing pile. "Newspaper subscription," he read. "How many of those do we have now?"

"Several," Sherlock stated. "Why?"

"I'm going to have to get a job," John sighed, as he stood up to go make some weak tea again. He looked through their kitchen cabinets and noted that they were going to be low on some other essentials...again. Yesterday had only been food and some bare necessities, but it had only been enough to cover their next few days.

"Oh, dull," Sherlock replied.

"Yeah, but necessary," John told him, as he sat back down. "If we want to eat actual food this month," he looked through the bills again and said, "These must come first though." He rubbed the back of his neck, hating what he was about to ask. "This is difficult to say…if you could see your way to lending me some…"

Sherlock's expression changed so minutely that Dr. Watson thought it must have been a trick of the light that made him see the disgust in the younger man's face.

"Sherlock," John asked and wondered if the disgust was for the fact that he'd asked his flatmate for a loan of cash. "Did you hear me?"

A decision had clearly been made though, since Sherlock jumped up from his position, motioned for John to follow as he demanded, "Come John, I need to go to the bank."

John followed. He was curious about just where his flatmate needed to go. They passed several bank branches that would have allowed them to take money out, but it seemed that the younger man had someplace grander in mind.

Their wanderings had led them to the entrance of the Shad Sanderson - Investment Bank. It was a large architecherually unique building in part of London's city centre. There were several guards at the entrance, of which some were Sentinels, who scented or observed the people that entered and exited the building. Their Guides were obviously some of those that worked on the floor in customer service positions.

John followed, quite wide-eyed at the glass and steel feel of the place. He felt a bit underdressed, as everyone there were in suits or day trader type outfits. He looked to be the only one in regular jeans and jumper. He did give a nod to a couple of the Sentinels that sensed him, but since they didn't approach him, he figured he was fine. He was glad that he had left his firearm at home, though. They'd have stopped him, even though he was legally permitted to carry it.

Sherlock walked through the place like he belonged in this world of big money and high finances. It was like he was familiar with the place, which was a good thing because Dr. Watson didn't have a clue, as to why they there in the first place.

"When you said we were going to the bank...," John started to say, but stopped as his flatmate had halted his speedy step to speak to one of the administrative people. The younger man then made his way to an executive office suite that claimed it belonged to the Director of Day Trading, Sebastian Wilkes.

They waited in the office, where they had been directed into by a PA of some kind, when a man came in from another door connected to a far hallway in the back. John noted that the man was in a very expensive suit and had that floppy type of hair that screamed '_Private School Fop_,' to him. The man barely glanced at him and looked straight to his companion and exclaimed, "Sherlock Holmes!"

Sherlock kept his face bland. He showed no emotion and kept his hands in his pockets, as he replied, "Sebastian."

"How are you, buddy? Call me Seb, please? It's high time that you did." Sebastian said in a pleased tone to have the younger man there to help out with his confusing case. "How long's it been? Eight years since I last saw you? Still looking for a Sentinel that'll take you, eh? Ha, ha, ha..."

'_Not long enough,_' Sherlock thought about the time frame from the last time they'd been in contact with one another, but kept all of that out of his expressions and interactions. "This is my friend, John Watson."

"Friend," Seb's questioning undertone wasn't missed by anyone in the room.

"That's right," John confirmed strongly. He shook the man's hand, but knew immediately that this person was also a Sentinel. His eyes narrowed, as _Seb_ tried to crush his hand in vice-like grip. The good doctor wasn't having any of that and had long ago learnt a trick or two to pinch the nerves in the hand, just so, with the fingers of the hand he used to shake another's. It deadened his opponent's own hand for a good while after too, when done correctly.

Seb was a consummate actor though and never let it show, but it was obvious to Sherlock that something had happened to the man's hand. He was secretly pleased about it and couldn't wait to ask his flatmate, what it was that he had done.

The banker only said, "Grab a pew, boys."

The personal assistant that had showed them into the office appeared at the door and waited. Seb nodded to the girl, as he asked the others. "Need something to drink? Coffee? Water?" He looked to the girl and said, "We're sorted here, thanks."

The girl left to do whatever it was that PAs did. Seb gestured for the men to sit down once more.

Sherlock sprawled in the chair and said, "You're doing well. Spending lots of time abroad..."

The man looked confused, as he explained, "Only some of the..."

"Flying all the way round the world," Sherlock's tone was one of amazement. "...and twice a month, too!"

Seb shook his head and smiled ruefully. He'd not forgotten this aspect of Sherlock Holmes, but the younger man had made a name for himself because of his skills and the banker's superiors wanted the best.

"You're doing that thing, aren't you," Sebastian said. He pointed his finger in the younger man's face and wagged it slowly. He turned to Sherlock's friend and spoke in an amiable tone, as if their macho handshake hadn't taken place. "We were at Uni together and this guy here," he pointed again at Sherlock. "He had this trick he used to do."

"It's not a trick," Sherlock stated.

"He could look at you and tell you, your whole life story," Seb continued. "The others were amazed because he wasn't an active Sentinel. Image how shocked they all were when they found out he was just a Guide."

Sherlock flinched slightly. It wasn't something that any normal person could tell, but to the Sentinels in the room and those watching the security footage, the flinch was there. It had happened when the banker had said, '_Just a Guide_.' There was an underlying tone of superiority that grated on John's nerves, especially after the reaction he'd just seen.

"Yes," John confirmed, as he put some information about his flatmate aside to think on later. "I've seen him do it. Quite brilliant, isn't it?"

"Put the wind up everyone," Seb said in a tone that told him that he didn't think it was brilliant at all. "We hated him for it." He had a micro-expression of pure hatred that disappeared too soon for the average eye to see, but John noted it, like it had been taken in a moment of photography and it stuck with him. It even sent him into a fugue state.

"John," Sherlock called to him very softly, which brought him back to the conversation at hand.

"Um," John noised, wondering how long, but noticed that the banker only carried on with his explanation of things that had happened when Sherlock was at university.

"...and this freak," Seb said, as he pointed his finger at Sherlock. "He would know who you'd been shagging the previous night."

"I simply observed," Sherlock declared.

"Go on then," Seb laughed arrogantly. "Enlighten me. '_Two trips a month, flying round the world_'. You're quite right, but how could you tell?"

Sherlock opened his mouth to tell him, but the man interrupted.

"Gonna tell them there's a stain on my tie," he lifted and waved the ugly thing. "Some type of ketchup you can only buy in Manhattan?"

"No, I..." Sherlock began again, but was interrupted again.

"Or maybe it's the mud on my shoes," Sebastian asked.

"I was chatting with your secretary outside," the Consulting Detective and Guide said. "She told me."

The man's arrogant smile faded. He looked to his supposed old school friend and said, "I'm glad you're here. We've had a break in and I want to hire you to figure out how it was done. Follow me."

Sebastian left his office and they followed him across the busy trading floor. There was an abundance of noise and chatter that John was having some difficulties with. He was surprised that the man leading them wasn't having any kind of trouble and that's when he realized that the other man's Sentinel level could not have been as high as his own.

'_Why take a job in this field if he was,_' John thought. '_I was even able to hear the chattering through the man's office door and he wasn't even fazed by it. I wonder if his Guide is nearby or if he even needs one?_'

They reached a corner office with a glass front. The inner room was darkened.

"This is Sir William's office, the bank's former chairman," Sebastian explained. "His room has been left here...like a sort of memorial." He keyed the code on the keypad next to the door and then swiped an access card through. "Someone broke in here the previous night."

"What did they steal," John asked.

"Nothing," Seb explained. "They just left a little message." He flicked the light switch on.

The two guests blinked, John a bit longer than the other two, to get their eyes used to the light. The air is somewhat stale, as the space had been closed for some time. There wasn't much dust, as a place unused doesn't gather much of it to begin with.

It was a classic looking office made for an elderly man. The desk was a leather top affair with a brass lamp on the corner with a name plate in the centre, a fancy fountain pen set with a blotter to the side of it. It looked like a museum set up.

Behind the desk was an oil painting of a gentleman, with a plaque that stated who the man was and what his position had been. The face of the man seemed to be that of someone elderly and grim, not that you could tell because it had been defaced.

Someone had vandalized the portrait by using a bright yellow paint, obviously from an aerosol can, and had drawn a thick horizontal line across Sir William's eyes. The paint appeared to have been very wet, since the line across had vertical trails, dripping down the canvas. It looked like there was some kind of artist's tag to the left of the whole thing.

Sherlock walked around the room. He walked to the window, looked around corners and checked the carpet for a disturbed spaced where the '_artist_' would have stood to tag the portrait. He looked impressed by the whole of it and then asked to watch the security footage.

They returned to Seb's office to watch what the cameras had caught. It was strange, but the difference from one time frame to the other was only sixty seconds. They watch it a couple of times, but there's nothing to see, no shadows or anything could be seen on the screen of the CCTV footage. '_11:33pm_', the image of the portrait is free and clear of paint. '_11:34pm_', the image contained its new face lift. The streaks of paint slowly dripped down the canvas.

"As you can see, only sixty seconds and the damage was done," Seb told them. "Someone came up here, in the middle of the night, splashed paint around and then left within a minute, without sounding any of our security alarms either."

"How many ways into that office," Sherlock asked.

"That's where it gets really interesting," Sebastian said and led them down to the reception desk. There on the computer screen was a display of floors, doors and door names. "Every door that opens in this bank gets logged right here." He paused and then explained further. "Every office, walk-in cupboard...every toilet, too, has to be keyed to be accessed."

Sherlock scanned the display and said, "That office door didn't open last night?"

"There's a hole in our security," Seb told them. "Find it and we'll pay you. Five figures," he said, as he reached into his pocket. He waved a pre-printed and signed check.

John looked at the amount, impressed that the man was willing to pay that much as a primary fee. His flatmate looked at it with jaded eyes, as though he was used to seeing that kind of thing.

"This is only an advance," Seb stated. "Tell me how he got in and there's a bigger one, double the amount, on its way."

"I don't need incentives, Sebastian," Sherlock sneered. He refused to look at it and left them to record images of the office of Sir William, now that Seb was no longer showing them anything interesting. He was eager to begin the work that was far more interesting to his mind. This mystery was like one of those closed door cases, only this one was based on the fact that everything was secured with electronic monitoring devices and locks. The office was also in an almost impossible to reach location.

Seb shrugged and had been about to put that away in his pocket, only to have the check snatched out of his hand by the man whose presence he'd disregarded much of the time. Even if his hand was only now beginning to regain some feeling in it, he still hadn't acknowledged the doctor for more than a few moments, as he primarily related his issues and the case only to Sherlock.

"I'll take that for him," John told him. "Not only am I his friend, but I'm also the one that takes care of his finances, since he can't be bothered with such mundane matters."

"You don't look like an accountant," Seb sneered.

"What's an accountant supposed to look like," John asked with a shrug. He looked towards Sherlock's form and knew that the younger man was doing this for fun, but that he also had chosen this case to obviously help ease some of John's financial worries. "Look, I've got to catch up to him, nice to have met you and all."

Sebastian shrugged and let them go. He planned to cancel the check within five business days, if it wasn't deposited by the end of the week. He knew how Sherlock worked. He wasn't so sure about that new '_friend_' of his though.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

Sherlock's phone was out and he clicked images, this way and that. He fully explored Sir William's office and noticed that it contained access to a tiny, private balcony space. Seb's office had something similar and so did the other top Managers or Heads of the different departments of the bank. They were several floors up and there was nothing below that balcony outcropping. He had noted that there was no information related to the opening or closing of the balcony doors on the program that his old friend had been proud to show off.

The office light had still been on and from outside the office the younger man took images of the defaced portrait. He went into the office next to that of Sir William's shrine and noticed that through the glass walls the graffiti was in clear view of the neighbouring desk. A final snap of the of the neighbouring door plaque: '_Hong Kong Desk Head_' and the two men took the glass elevator to the main floor in order to leave the huge building.

John noticed that the younger man was twitching with expectation of questions and the doctor was quite content to oblige, but before that he said, "Tomorrow we're going to your real bank and you're going to deposit the check."

"What," Sherlock seemed surprised at that. He wanted the questions and he hadn't been expecting a declaration of his future activities.

"It's either that or we go there now and you give me authority to deposit checks and access your account for the household stuff," John said. "It needs to be done and I'm of a mind to take care of that at the same time I do mine. You can always remove my access at a later date, if you find that it doesn't work for you."

"I don't know what to say to that," Sherlock replied.

"Think on it then," John said. "Now how did you know about the trips around the world for that smarmy git? I know you didn't talk the secretary." He paused and then grinned, "You said that just to irritate him!"

Sherlock looked at him with a pleased smile, like he was glad that someone could figure out some things about his methods. He received one in reply with soft dark chuckle. "What did you do to his hand?"

"Pinched a nerve or two," John replied. "So, how did you..."

"Did you look at his watch," Sherlock asked.

"No," John replied honestly. "It's like shoes. I don't really notice those kinds of things."

"The hands on his watch were correct, but the date was wrong," Sherlock replied with a huff about the shoe comment. '_Should always notice a person's shoes,_' he thought, but continued explaining. "It actually said the day before yesterday. He crossed the date line twice, but didn't alter his watch upon his return."

"Within a month you said," John commented. "How d'you know that part?"

"New Rolex," Sherlock replied and received a wide-eyed look at that. "Only came out in February."

John shook his head and asked, "You think we should sniff around here a bit longer?"

"Not unless you noticed something," Sherlock asked. "I never thought to ask you. Did you sense anything in there?"

"Standard office cleaner and that awful cologne that the git was wearing," John rubbed his nose. "After a whiff of that, I couldn't tell you anything else about a person's scent or if there had been anything of note."

"You'll have to make a study of those..." He stopped speaking when he noticed the other man shaking his head.

"You study the subject because you're interested in it," John said. "I'm too busy studying other things that doing additional studies with my senses on top of everything else just would not be useful at this point in time." He held up his hand. "I've nearly completed in my studies, but I need this break."

"Fine," Sherlock said with a small pout, but continued on down the street. "But you'll make some kind of study on different smells won't you."

"Only if it's useful to me," John replied. "I'll study the generic scents of something, not the specifics. I can leave that up to you. I'll be around to tell you if it was natural or chemical, but beyond that I don't have the brain for keeping that kind of information in order." Sherlock looked at him like was speaking a strange language. "Not everyone can sort through all this data and make any sense of it nor quite deduce their origins." He looked around and then asked, "Now where are we going?"

"We're going to see a banker named Van Coon," Sherlock told him and showed him the name plate that he'd taken from the man's desk. "He should be at home at this time of day, since he's on the night shift." He stood upright, with his arm in the air and hailed a cab, with the natural ease of a tall person, head and shoulders above a standard crowd.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

**TBC...**

(...i...) Used the net and some wiki information, it takes too long for regular humans, but I figure that John's already gotten most of what he needs from his time in the field as an emergency surgeon and only needs a few months of training on the home field before he becomes recognized to do what he wants to do. (...'_Consultant Forensic Pathologist_' true field in the UK...)


	3. Chapter 3

**CH 3**

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

Sherlock and John were standing at the entrance of Eddie Van Coon's apartment building. The younger man buzzed the sixth floor apartment, but huffed, as it seemed that the man may be out for the day.

"What are we going to do now," John asked. "Sit here and wait for him to come back?"

Sherlock then buzzed the one above Eddie's. "Brand new label... means they just moved in."

"What?" John asked. "They could have just replaced the label."

"Hello," a woman's voice answered the buzz.

"Hi," Sherlock said in a perfectly amiable tone of voice, slightly higher pitched than his normal one. "I live in the flat just below you. I don't think we've met."

"No, well, I've just moved in," the woman confessed.

"Saw the movers," Sherlock said, after he shot a triumphant look at John. "Listen, I've actually locked my keys, in my flat."

They both heard the woman smile as she asked, "You want me to buzz you in?"

"Please," Sherlock was all politeness, as the door clicked to let them in. "May I use your balcony, too?"

"What," the woman said, but it was too late. They were on their way up.

Sherlock made a plausible explanation for the use of the balcony and then he was able to drop down to the balcony below. He'd sent the good doctor to wait on Van Coon's floor in order to let him in once he was inside the man's flat through the unlocked patio door.

He was prepared to explore the flat. He made his way through looking at the barrenness of the place. It didn't quite look lived in, especially with the phone on a small table, next to a phone book and a standard "A to Z of London" tour guide book.

"Sherlock," John called out, while he knocked on the door. He jiggled the door handle, but Sherlock was quite lost in his mind cataloguing world.

The kitchen was mildly interesting, as the fridge seemed to only have champagne in it, but not much in the way of real food. He was getting slightly annoyed by the knocking, but he continued to catalogue the bits and bobs of the place. It was like getting to know someone from the clothes they preferred to wear or how they chose to walk down the street.

"Sherlock," John called out. "You okay in there?"

The bathroom was tiny, but in pristine condition. Common liquid soap and a single tooth brush. Not much more in the way of toiletries for a high paid banking executive and night-time trader.

Another knock on the front door and John's voice barely filtered in, as the doctor said, "Any time you feel like letting me in..."

Sherlock moved his observations to the bedroom, where he had difficulty getting in. He briefly wondered if he should open the front door to get John and then nodded, as he thought, '_He's a Sentinel, maybe he'll be able to sense something of the place too and I can always stop him from entering the room until I've had a proper look at it,_' he thought, as he unbolted the door and removed the chain from the lock. '_Then again maybe he won't sense anything. I can't quite get a handle why his senses fluctuate so much._'

"Finally," John said, as he looked his flatmate up and down to ensure that the younger man was uninjured. He inhaled a sigh of relief and sensed a bit of corpse decomposition, which made him gag briefly until Sherlock guided him in the control of his sense of smell. "Thank you, God that was disgusting."

"I can't smell it," Sherlock said. "Need your help with the bedroom door though."

"Right then," John replied. They both pushed on the door and were able to move the wedged chair that had been jammed against the handle of the bedroom door.

Sherlock's eyes roamed about the room. He noted that the man they were seeking was laying there on the bed with a gun on the floor by his hand and a wound through his temple.

"No question he's been dead for a short while," John said. He too looked around the room. "Think he lost a lot of money? Suicide rate is pretty high amongst these city types."

"We don't know that it was suicide," Sherlock said. He looked around the room and noted that there was a suitcase full of socks and underwear, but that there was a hole in the middle. '_Something was in here,_' he thought. '_Something other than clothing, which were the buffering agents for the object, whatever it was?_'

John walked over and noticed that the bag wasn't pack well and said so, "Not packed efficiently was it?" He sniffed and said, "Stinks, too, hasn't washed those in a few days."

Sherlock grinned at the doctor and looked at him as though he had just said something wondrous. "Something was packed tightly in here," he said. "The laundry three days old and washed or not was placed in this manner to protect whatever it was."

John's face scrunched with disgust, but he put his hand on the kneeling man's shoulder to steady himself. He opened his eyes wide and looked for something that had nothing to do with the dead man on the bed. "It's a jar or vase of some kind," John said. "Not quite a traditional shape. Smells like ceramic or dry pottery and yet not quite that either. It also smells old, kind of like dust or age. I can't explain it any better than that."

His grip on Sherlock's shoulder was steady and he needed to move. There was another smell in the room, but he needed to go where it was the strongest. The Guide in the younger man knew that he needed to follow and allow the Sentinel the use of his senses.

"There's another scent, but it's fading. Like it hasn't been here for a long while," John explained. He walked slightly trance-like back to the previous area of the flat and moved towards the bathroom. "Here," he sneezed. "There was perfume, quite unlike any man's cologne." He sneezed again and then let the shoulder go, as he looked around and noticed that the bathroom was set up like that belonging to a single man, but he noticed some of the spaces in the medicine chest. "He used to have a woman or girlfriend, but the relationship stopped, not that recently either."

"Focus on radio dials or whatever type of equipment you're familiar with," Sherlock coaxed. "You should have set those up on your own by now. The one for scent and sight are too high, fix them so that you're no longer affected by the environment and don't bother me while I take another look about the place."

John smiled to himself and knew that this was the way that Sherlock would be as a full Guide. As a military man, abrupt orders were the thing and he was used to issuing his own in return as a Captain and as a Doctor. The younger man had spoken in just the right way for him to calm his senses down.

He pictured a personal laboratory, suited to him, with various pieces of hospital equipment each with their own sets of dials and switches. Sure enough the X-Ray machine was too bright, so he dimmed it to a moderate level and his eyesight returned to relatively normal.

There was another machine linked to a computer monitor, something new that he'd seen on the internet called a '_Metabolomx_'. (...i...) It didn't have a switch in real life, but his had one that he could control and that was how he controlled his sense of smell. The monitor attached helped too, since it noted the level that his sense of smell was at.

John's sense of touch used a '_Touch-Test Sensory Kit_' (...ii...). The kit was in an open position and when his sense of touch was up the kits' testing rods would be raised. There were twenty rods in the kit and usually his norm was about five raised rods, since his sense of touch was the most important to him, due to his status as a Doctor. If his sense of touch was completely turned off the kit would have been closed.

His hearing control was only a modern cell phone with a prominent volume control button. It actually looked like Sherlock's phone for some queer reason, but he accepted that as an indicator that the younger man was more than likely his true Guide.

His taste sense was probably the most unique in that it was a small lab set-up of five round bottom beakers each over a burner. Each beaker representing a flavour that makes up taste with different colours to know which is which, like blue for sour, red for hot, and pink for sweet, etc... The higher the flame, the more a particular sense or flavour of taste was affected. The fifth beaker was not linked to any flavour, but an absence of it and when that one was bubbling on a high flame, he could taste nothing.

"John," Sherlock asked.

John shook his head and said, "I'm fine now." He smiled privately and said, "Thank you."

"Good because we have company," his flatmate said with returned smile. Then he nodded with a pointed look at the police officer that had entered the apartment. The man looked younger than DI Lestrade. He was smaller and fresh-faced looking too.

"Ah, Sergeant," Sherlock said. "We haven't met."

"I know who you are," the man said. "I'd very much prefer it, if you didn't tamper with any of the evidence."

"I haven't even had a chance to examine the body," Sherlock said.

"It's not your office," the man told him.

"I had phoned Lestrade," Sherlock said. "Is he on his way?"

"He's busy," the man said. "_I'm_ in charge here...and it's not Sergeant. It's Detective Inspector Dimmock." He moved into through the rooms, not noticing much. He looked into the bedroom where the corpse was laying on the bed. He did only a cursory walkthrough and looked at Dr. Watson who was fixated on the dead man's face.

"Something's in his mouth," John said. "Smells like wet paper."

Sherlock's hands were gloved and so pried the mouth open. "There is something in there," he looked to his flatmate and said, "Well done John." He gently pulled it out of the man's mouth and put it into a small evidence baggy that the new DI held out to him. "Thank..."

The DI sealed it quickly and handed it off to an awaiting forensic technician, in blue cover suit, before Sherlock had the chance to examine it more closely. "Open and shut, I should think," Dimmock told them. "It's obviously a suicide."

"I believe that's what it's been made to look like," John says. "That's a likely explanation, only for some of the facts available at this time."

Sherlock looked at him with a curious look on his face, but received a nod that he should be the one to present his own deductions. '_John's noticed something that the new DI hasn't,_' he thought. '_Fascinating, I wonder what it was._'

The consultant looked at Dimmock and said, "You're reaching. You've got a solution that you like, but you're choosing to ignore anything you see that doesn't comply with it."

Dimmock scowled and asked, "Such as...?"

"The wound is on the right side of his head," Sherlock told them, like that was the whole solution to the issue against declaring this to be a suicide.

"And...?" Dimmock questioned.

"Van Coon was left-handed," John said. "The wound is on the right temple, where a right-handed person would have shot themselves. His wound should have been on the left and so should the placement of the gun."

Sherlock's brow furrowed. He knew that the doctor could not have noticed everything that he had. "My good friend, Doctor Watson is correct," he said and received nod to expound his observations. He mimed a left-handed man trying to shoot himself in the right temple and looked like quite an idiot doing it, but he got his point across. "Requires a bit of contortion and quite unmanageable to make the wound look like it does."

"Left," Dimmock parrots. "Handed?"

"I'm amazed you didn't notice," Sherlock told them. "All you have to do is look around this flat, evidence of it is everywhere." He walked over and pointed that the chair that has been in use quite often, "Tea stains...where he's been resting a cup on the arm of the chair, the left arm," he walks to where the phone is. "Pad and paper to the left because he holds the receiver with his right hand and writes with his left." He pointed to the bedroom, "All his expensive and favourite suits on the left side of the wardrobe because he'd opened the left-handed door... Need me to go on?"

Dimmock shakes his head and said, "No, not really..."

Sherlock then replied, "I might as well actually." He told them and then pointed to the kitchen. "The butter knife in the kitchen with the butter on the right side of the blade, no right-handed person would use it like that, but I have a question for Doctor Watson, since I already know that you wouldn't have noticed all of this, since that's not your specialty or training. How did you know he was left-handed?"

"Writing callous on the middle finger of his left hand, plus ink on the same hand from a leaky pen," John answered. "You're right I wouldn't have noticed all of this, but I do notice what the physical body tells me. Also the gunpowder residue mostly on his left hand, and only a bit on his right, it means he'd been holding the gun in his left with the butt supported with his right hand." He demonstrated in a miming action.

Sherlock went back into the bedroom with some speed, followed by the youngish Detective Inspector. "There's always something," he muttered, as he looked at the left hand for the evidence that John had pointed out about the ink stains and the callous. "I'll have to remember this."

"But the gun," Dimmock asked.

"He was waiting for the killer," Sherlock told him. "He'd been threatened already."

Dimmock looked skeptical and asked, "What? How?"

"Today at the bank there was a sort of warning that we'd seen," John ambled into the room with the other two.

"He fired when his attacker came in," Sherlock said.

"And the bullet fired," Dimmock questioned. "Where is it then?"

"Out the window," Sherlock said and pointed to the open window across from him.

Dimmock looked back to the few officers that had gathered around. They had been gossiping about Sherlock. The Consulting Detective was there smirking at him and the rest of them looked away.

"Oh, come on!" Dimmock exclaimed. "What are the chances of that?"

"Wait for the pathologist's report," Sherlock said. "You're going to have to anyway. The bullet in his brain wasn't fired from his gun, I guarantee it. It's a different calibre due to the size of the wound."

"But if his door was locked from the inside," Dimmock began. "How did the killer get in?"

"Good," Sherlock declared in a pleased, yet really sarcastic sounding tone of voice. "You're finally asking the right questions." He left the room and called out, "Come along Doctor, we have other places to go."

"Sorry," John said to the new DI. "Just ask yourself, how did Sherlock get in before you came with the manager of the flat with the official key?" He waved to the other officers and followed his flatmate, as best as he could.

'_Long, legged, lanky git,_' he thought with a huff, after he'd caught up in time to get into the cab that Sherlock had summoned. '_Always running off!_'

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

Half an hour later they found themselves in town at Sherlock's personal bank. "I want him added as my secondary credit card holder, plus I want him to have access to my checking accounts. He's in charge of the bills around our place."

"Sherlock," John hissed. "I _was_ kidding about all of this."

"I'm not," Sherlock said. "I've thought it over and it makes sense to have this taken care of. This way you needn't worry so much about the _essentials_."

John rolled his eyes and signed all of the papers given to him by the bank clerk. He then deposited the '_incentive_' check that they got from Sebastian Wilkes for the case they were working one. He was handed a temporary credit card and was told that another would be sent to him by registered post in a few weeks, time.

"Thank you," he said to the clerk, as they left. "Did you do this with your other flatmates?"

"No," Sherlock told him. "Never had a flatmate before, but I would never trust anyone else in this way either. Now you can take care of those bills you're so worried about. I do believe all the newspaper subscriptions _are_ mine."

John just nodded and said, "All right then. But I will be paying you back for my share of the bills."

"How are you going to do that," Sherlock said. "You're still re-training."

"I've asked the SC to find me a part-time paying position," John said. "The re-training I have left to do will take about two or three months of full-time attendance. It's required that I have a Guide with me during that time and it had to be one that's either bonded to me or one that's following the same program."

Sherlock looked interested, but didn't put himself forward for the position of the temporary Guide. He hadn't bothered to find out what program the Doctor was following and right now they were on a very interesting case. "I see," he said. "Now let's move along, we need to go update our current client about this turn of events."

"What..." John started to ask, but ended up chasing after his flatmate once the paperwork for the bank was tucked away securely in his inner coat pocket.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

Sherlock had tracked down Sebastian, who'd been having a dinner meeting with a few of his own clients. He had noted the time and place of the meeting from his '_old chum's_' day-timer book, while they'd been made to wait at his office. The consultant just needed to let the man know about the murder of Van Coon and he wasn't going to wait for a good or proper time to announce it either. He still didn't like the man, so why make things pleasant for him.

"It was a threat," Sherlock said without so much, as a by-your-leave from his '_old friend_'. "That's what the graffiti meant." The group at the table had stopped talking to listen in on the gossip that seemed to be coming their way.

"I'm kind of in a meeting here," Seb told him, hoping that the pompous and arrogant, unbonded Guide would take the hint. "Can't you make an appointment with my secretary?"

Sherlock just sat down at the table and grabbed a bit of bread to nibble on, since no one had claimed the last bun in the basket. '_Probably too polite to do so by observing society's social niceties_,' he thought blandly. '_Been on the table too long and has dried._'

"I don't think this can wait," he replied with half a bite and then he handed the rest to John who took his own bite of the soft foodstuff, since the man was hungry from the running around that they'd been doing. The actions were observed by everyone, but the Consultant just continued on with his news, "One of your traders...well there's no delicate way to put this. Someone in your office was killed."

"What," the banker said loudly.

"Van Coon," John told them in a tone that indicated that this wasn't a joke of any kind. "The police are at his flat right now."

"Killed?" Seb asked. "How?"

Sherlock then said, "Sorry to interfere with everyone's digestion. Still want me to make an appointment? Okay then, how about nine o'clock tomorrow at the Yard?"

Sebastian stood up and excused himself. He motioned for Sherlock and John to follow.

"Tell us about Van Coon," Sherlock demanded.

"Good man," Seb told them, after he refreshed himself a bit with a splash of water to his face. "Worked in Harrow, Oxford...very bright. He also worked in Asia for a while so..."

"That's why you gave him the Hong Kong accounts," John concluded, after he tossed the remainder of the bread into the garbage. It was just bad form to eat in a public loo and it was quite disgusting to even contemplate considering that his sense of smell was acting up again.

"Lost five million in a single morning, once," Sebastian told them frankly. "He made it all back a week later...had nerves of steel, Eddie did."

"Who'd want to kill him then," John asked.

Seb huffed and said, "We all make enemies."

"You don't all end up with a bullet through your temple," John replied. He looked to Sherlock, wondering why he wasn't asking questions, as the banker just received a text message.

"My chairman," Seb told them with a relieved sigh. "The police have been to see him. Apparently _they've_ just informed him that it was a suicide."

"Well, they've got it wrong," Sherlock countered. "He was murdered, Sebastian."

"I'm afraid they don't see it that way and neither does my boss," Seb told them. He held up his hand and continued. "I hired you to do one job. Don't get side-tracked!" He left them there.

Sherlock huffed and mumbled, "Narrow field of vision that one."

"I agree," John said. "Home?"

"Yes," Sherlock said. "I've some thinking to do."

"Of course you do," John replied with what could only be described as an indulgent smile.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

**TBC...**

(...i...) Metabolomx - see web:  blogs dot smithsonianmag dot com/ideas /2013/ 01/ these-machines-will-be-able-to-detect- smells-your-own-nose-cannot/ (remove the spaces and change the word dot properly to see device)

(...ii...) Touch-Test Sensory Kit - see web:  www dot ncmedical dot com/item_1278 dot html (remove the spaces and change the word dot properly to see device)


	4. Chapter 4

**CH 4**

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

**Days Later**

John Watson sat across from a woman named Sarah Sawyer, who was reading his CV. '_Good thing I brought it along, but she should have received the most recent one from the SC,_' he thought. '_At least this place is close to Baker Street, so I could walk here on a good day._'

"It's just locum work," Sarah told him.

"No, that's fine," John replied.

"You know that you're a bit...well...quite a bit over qualified," she told him.

"Could always do with the money," John told her. "The SC assured me that I'd be needed for a while here and I could use the down time to let my brain and senses settle before I return for the last of my re-training sessions."

"We've got two off on holiday this week," Sarah explained. "Another one just left to have a baby," she paused and then continued, "This might just be a bit mundane for you and it's only for half-salary."

"Any salary is good at the moment." John smiled at her and said, "Mundane is good...," he qualified that statement with, "…well, sometimes. Mundane works for me."

She read more of the CV. She didn't have to since she was contracted to help with the Guide and Sentinel Centres of the city. She had already received a copy, but the interview process allowed her to gauge the man's sensory abilities and so far she wasn't that impressed. This place did have a high turnaround of qualified individuals, though and they were short-staffed at the moment. "Says here...that you're a soldier, why didn't you get placed with one of their veteran clinics?"

"I'm a Doctor first," John replied. "...and I was invalided out of the Army. I also needed a job close to my flat, since I'm living with a Guide at the moment and he's helped me out of zones from time to time. If no one here can get me out of a zone, he's to be contacted. His particulars are part of the contacts listed on my CV."

"Yes, I see," she said. "I'm a qualified Guide too, which is one of the reasons why you were sent here. Anything else, you care to tell me about yourself?"

"I learned the clarinet in school," John replied with a cheeky smile. He felt a slight pull towards her and assumed that it was the Sentinel thing, but he did find her attractive too. However it was nothing to the intensity of the pull he felt around Sherlock.

Sarah answered with a smile herself and nodded, as she said, "I look forward to working with you."

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

John returned from his quasi interview to find that Sherlock had not moved from his position of observation on the couch. The man had, in fact, asked him to do something while he was not there to do it.

"I said," Sherlock said, once more. "Could pass me a pen?"

"What," John asked, surprised. "When did you ask?"

"About an hour ago," was the reply.

"Didn't you notice that I'd gone out," John asked and then he tossed the sought for pen. "I went to that nearby surgery that the SC told me about, to get a schedule of times they needed me. Instead they interviewed me. Luckily, I already had an updated CV to show them, you're name's placed as a primary contact if they can't get me out of a fugue state."

Sherlock's brow furrowed and he asked, "Why would you do that?"

"Need to supplement my pension and you've helped me out of a zone before," John replied.

"How was it," the younger man asked.

"Great," John said. "She's great."

"Who?"

"Oh," John flustered. "The job!"

"She?"

"I meant the job," John replied. "_She_, is the manager of the clinic and a Guide too."

"Of course they'd send you to a place with an _acceptable_ Guide," Sherlock stated. He rolled over and turned his back on the doctor, who knew just what his flatmate was doing.

John shook his head, but noticed that Sherlock's laptop was opened to an online article from a newspaper called, '_London News Online._' "The intruder who can walk through walls," he read out loud. "That does sound a bit like our case."

"Doesn't it," Sherlock turned over and sat up. "Happened last night, the journalist was shot dead in his apartment. His door was locked and windows were bolted from the inside, exactly the same as Van Coon!"

John watched the younger man race to his room and change quickly with military speed. He called out, "You don't think...?"

"He's killed another one," Sherlock said. "Come on we're going to the Yard."

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

There they had found the young looking Detective Inspector Dimmock sitting at his tiny cubicle, desk area. As soon as they found him, Sherlock immediately sat down, twirled the computer screen around and grabbed the man's keyboard to type up the online address to the news article that he'd found.

"Here," Sherlock said. "Brian Lukis, freelance journalist. He was murdered in his flat and the door was locked from the inside." He twirled the monitor back for the DI to look at it.

John shrugged, when he received a questioning look. "You've got to admit that it's seems quite similar. Both men killed by someone who can, apparently, walk through solid walls. We need into his flat."

Dimmock glanced around the office quickly and didn't like the glances he'd been receiving ever since the word had spread about him being told to work with Sherlock Holmes. He hadn't budged in his position of a suicide ruling for Van Coon because he didn't want to own up to the mistake he'd made. However Sherlock wasn't going to let him get away with any wrong pronouncement, as to the cause of Van Coon's death.

"Inspector," Sherlock called to him. "Do you seriously believe that Eddie Van Coon was just _another_ suicide?" The man was silent on the matter. "You checked with ballistics, I suppose." The man nodded because he had checked. "And...the shot that killed him wasn't from _his own _gun, was it?"

"No it wasn't," Dimmock confirmed.

"No!" Sherlock stated. "So perhaps this investigation might move a bit quicker, if you took my word as gospel. Now let's go before something else happens."

Dimmock looked at John because he couldn't believe the arrogance of the Consulting Detective and Guide.

"Yeah," John answered the unasked question. "He's always like that and I don't think you can go wrong following his advice in this matter or any others in the future, especially if you're in a bind and need him to consult. Your findings will back up his statements, but maybe one day, if you're lucky, very lucky, they won't and then you'll have one upped him. For now you really should follow Lestrade's example and agree to follow up on what Sherlock suggests is a viable course of action for your investigations."

'_Damn good impression of that 'protect the Guide' instinct I've heard about, but never chanced to witness,_' Sherlock thought, as he glanced at his flatmate's defensive expression. '_Never thought John would show that kind of defense about me though, at least not this early in our acquaintance, although I did add him to one set of my finances, so maybe I'm exhibiting some of those 'protect the protector' instincts too...I'll have to think on that later._'

However, the Consulting Detective only huffed at the pair of them and said, "I've just handed you a murder enquiry. We might have a serial murder or something. Five minutes in the flat! That's all I'll need to see if they're connected or not."

Eventually they entered the flat of the dead journalist, Brian Lukis. Those that were Sentinels, who had their bonded Guides with them, were able to control their senses. John wasn't so lucky. He stuck close to Sherlock and gripped his arm, which had the effect of limiting the man's movement, though it helped him. His flatmate had been slightly irked to have his flamboyant movements curtailed, but he permitted the touch and the limitation.

'_I'm going to have to talk to him about this and soon,_' John thought to himself as he caught the scent of spoiled food in the dead man's fridge. '_How long was he gone for the food to have spoiled?_'

Sherlock scanned the room and noted that there were quite a number of books, some of which were location specific, like south-east Asia. Tucked close among them was the ever present travel guide, '_A to Z of London_'.

They all noted the open suitcase, which John stepped closer to it and took a deep breath. "It's been empty longer," he said. "Has that same ceramic pottery scent inside along with the unwashed clothing."

"Interesting," Sherlock muttered. "You all right," he asked. The Doctor nodded and released his hold on the taller man's arm and then went where his flatmate pointed to the journalist's notes look at, while Sherlock scoped the rest of the flat and immediately noticed several points of interest. "Fourth floor," he told them. "That's why they think they're safe. Put the chain on the door, bolt it shut and they think they're impregnable."

John looked over the man's desk. It contained lots of pages and bits of paper with handwritten notes, but nothing of great value. He couldn't look through the man's other things, since forensics had to catalogue the items first. There were small piles of assorted books, many of which were to do with the politics of south-east Asia. It was clear that the journalist was researching for an article, but what specifically, was not clear by the jumble of references and half finished sentences on various different subjects.

Meanwhile Sherlock fiddled with the windows and the door. He looked everywhere and eventually he looked up and noticed that this particular flat had a skylight. "They never consider for a moment," he continued his conversation, as though he hadn't paused to look around. "That there's another way in here."

"I don't understand," Dimmock said.

Sherlock climbed onto the table and lifted a chair onto it. He stepped onto the chair and lifted the broom he'd taken with him to poke at the skylight panel. (...i...)

"What are you doing," Dimmock asked.

"We're dealing with a killer who can climb," Sherlock told them all. "They cling to the wall like an insect. "That's how he got in." He continued to poke at the skylight and opened it with the just a minor push of the broom handle.

"Mountain climbers can do that kind of climbing too," John added. "They are skilled in climbing different surfaces using just their bodies. Their fingers and toes are stronger than you think. This looks more like acrobatic skill though, but still possible to do. I've done something similar in Afghanistan."

"You're not serious," Dimmock exclaimed. "You mean the killer crawled up there like some kind of wanna'be Spider-man?"

"Don't know who that is," Sherlock said. "But yes, the killer climbed through the skylight here to get to Lukis.

"I don't believe this," Dimmock muttered.

"The killer most certainly scaled to the sixth floor balcony to kill Van Coon," Sherlock said, as he climbed down from his precarious position.

Dimmock sputtered and tried to interrupt. "Hold on there..."

"Of course this was how he entered the bank without going through it," Sherlock continued. "He used a window ledge to edge his way across until he reached that little terrace balcony area that belonged to the Sir William at the bank. That particular door wasn't set to any sensor or alarm and it didn't have a keypad or card scanner next to it either."

"So much for monitoring every door," John said in an unfocussed voice. His eye had caught a small something on the floor. It was incongruous to anything else in the flat. He held out his hand for a small, evidence baggy, in order to bag the small innocuous object.

Dimmock handed him one, as the doctor's flatmate ran his thumbs through some of the books on the desk. It looked like the titles of them were interesting, but noted that the man ignored much and picked up only one book near the entrance to the flat.

"It's the one without the dust on it," John said, in answer to the question that no one asked, but was obvious in their confused gazes. "Lukis must have dropped it on his way in." He handed the man the folded bit of paper. "Here," he tells Dimmock. "I suspect that this is similar to what we found in Van Coon's mouth."

"John," Sherlock calls up to him from the entrance door. "We need to go the library."

John gave the policemen a sheepish grin, a half-hearted shrug and ran down the steps to follow his lanky flatmate on another chase to some other location of London's vast sprawl.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

"The book is date stamped with the same day that Lukis died," Sherlock explained. "So Lukis had to have been here just before his death, the question is what happened between here and the time he died."

They zipped, zigged and zagged through the bookshelves and racks, of the public library until they reached the one section that was specific to the politics of south-east Asia. They started looking at the books and wondering what specifically happened.

John sniffed and felt that there was a familiar scent in the area. It was the smell of aerosol paint. He pulled a couple of the books off the shelf and found what he had suspected he smelled. "Sherlock," he said. "Here."

More books were pulled and soon they saw the full image. It was the same as the painting in the bank. There was a single line on the right with and funny swizzle to the left of the line. The paint had the same drippy, runny lines too.

"Same pattern," John observed. He looked at the front of the books and noted that a couple had brushed against the paint. "Dry now, but wet when the books were partially pushed back into their proper position...not all the books here have the paint on them."

"So the killer goes to the bank...," Sherlock paused for a moment before he continues. "He leaves the threatening cipher for Van Coon, making him panic so much so, that...what... he flees to his flat and locks himself inside, where a few short hours later he dies."

"Seems likely...," John replied with a nod. "The killer then finds Lukis here, writes the same cipher, in a place where the man is likely to see it," he continued. "The journalist panics and races home..."

"Only to die the same night he checked out this book," Sherlock finished, as he held up the one in his hand. He looked at the image from his phone to that on the library wall. He snapped another one.

"Why did they die," John asked.

Sherlock shrugged and said, "Only the cipher can tell us."

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

Elsewhere a young man, who works for the British Museum visited the flat of his co-worker, Soo Lin Yao, who he'd just learned had left her position without a word to any of their colleagues. He had failed to gain her attention by flipping the door's post flap.

He had noticed that there was a new phone book that had just been delivered, but that it had not been collected, yet. So, he pulled out a leftover envelope from large sponsor mail-out that he'd done a few days ago, from his pocket and scrawled something on it. He folded it and left it with the girl's other post, wedged in the door.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

**TBC...**

(...i...) Used original script for images of scenes, available at Sherlock's blog "The Science of Deduction," not quite the same as the final product seen in the series or in this obvious re-write of the second episode.


	5. Chapter 5

**CH 5**

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

John and Sherlock walked and talked, as per their usual, discussing the ciphers they'd discovered, including a part of their hidden reference or meaning. They were foreign numbers, but to what they hadn't figured out that part yet.

"The world runs on codes and ciphers," Sherlock explained. "That million pound security system at the bank, the pin machine you took exception to..." He paused, as though to catch his breath. "Cryptography inhabits our every waking moment."

"Yes, okay," John agreed. "What if, what we're thinking is too complicated? Those things you mentioned are computer code and I know that the ciphers aren't computer language."

"This is different," Sherlock nodded he head. "It's an ancient device. Modern code-breaking methods can't unravel this."

John nodded and then asked, "Where are we headed?"

"I need some advice," Sherlock told him.

"What?" John asked, flabbergasted that his flatmate unbent enough to admit he needed help. "Sorry?"

"You heard me perfectly," Sherlock replied with a grin, knowing what his friend had wanted him to repeat. "I'm not saying it again."

"You," John said with a large grin. "You need advice."

"On painting, yes," Sherlock replied. "I need to talk to an expert." He was headed in the direction of the National Gallery, but cut down a side alley.

"Where," John looked around and then he smelt it. It was the distinctive scent of aerosol paint spray being administered to some building surface.

They rounded the corner and found a street youth painting the side of the building. He looked like the typical street delinquent with oversized pants and a hoody shirt. There was a duffle at his feet with several cans of coloured paint, but he was currently using plain black.

The kid seemed to know they were there without even looking, which meant that he was either a latent GNA Sentinel or an activated one that required no Guide. "Part of my new exhibition," he said, as he added another spritz of black to the image of a creature in a police uniform with a pig's face and a definite Hitler-esque mustache. "I call in '_Urbanbloodlustfrenzy_'."

"Interesting," Sherlock said, as he noted the various elements of the painted characacher. He understood what the youth was saying.

John looked at it, but made no comment.

The youth named Raz said, "I've got two minutes before a Community Support Officer comes round that corner. Can we talk whilst I'm working?"

Sherlock offered him his phone with the images of the painted markings or cipher. The youth tried to hand his spray can to John, who just stepped back with a shake of his head. The can dropped in the youth's bag.

Raz flipped through the images and said, "I know the paint." He paused and then continued. "Looks like Michigan, hardcore propellant. I'd say it was made of zinc."

"What about the symbols," Sherlock asked. "Do you recognize them?"

"It's not a tag," Raz told them. "I'm not even sure that's a proper language."

"Two men have been murdered, Raz. Deciphering this," Sherlock paused. "It could be the key to finding out who killed them."

John scented the community minded officers close by. He left the area before Sherlock finished his interrogation with a comment about going for coffee first before returning to the flat and that he'd meet him there sometime later.

Sherlock only waved him away. '_I'm surprised that he didn't stick around,_' he thought. '_His loss, I suppose, this is more interesting than coffee though._'

"This all you got then," Raz said, as he looked at the back of John walking away from them. He'd been hoping to pin his latest bit of art on someone gullible, but that wasn't going to happen this time around. The other man had looked like the perfect mark with the fuzzy jumper and all, but still...he turned his attention back to his curious colleague. "Not much to go on, is it?"

"You think you could help out," Sherlock asked.

"I can ask around," the street youth agreed.

Sherlock nodded and put away his phone, as he said, "Someone must recognize it."

Two officers came around the corner and one of them yelled, "Oi!"

Sherlock and Raz took off in opposite directions when they got to the end of the alley. The officers chased both of them further away from the scene of the crime against the community.

'_Now I know why John left,_' Sherlock thought. His mind map of the city showed him the best routes to lose the officer on his tail. Took him only three minutes of solid twists and turns when he finally made it to a high traffic street where he saw his roommate standing and staring up at a blinking, neon marquee sign. '_Is he in fugue?_'

"John," Sherlock called out softly. He reached out and barely touched the back of the man's hand. "John, come back to me."

John blinked and sighed. "Damn lights," he said and rubbed his eyes, as though to wipe away the afterimages that flickered in his mind. He blinked again, looked at his flatmate through watery eyes, and complained, "Didn't get my coffee because of 'em."

"We'll get you one now," Sherlock said. He led the way to the nearest Clarion Café shop and ordered coffees, as he told him that Raz was going to ask around. "Lukis' personal effects will have been collected by now. You need to go see if the man kept a diary or journal or anything on his person that may help us to track his movements in the last days of his life."

"Fine," John sighed in agreement. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to make an appointment to see Van Coon's PA for tomorrow," Sherlock said. "Tonight, I'm going to think on the cipher."

"When I get back to the flat, I'm sleeping for a few hours," John told him. "I need it in order to be efficient and effective. I don't want to be caught zoning because I didn't get enough rest."

"Fine, fine," Sherlock said, as they went their separate ways for the next hour or so.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

John woke up refreshed. He needed a quick shower and a cuppa before beginning with the rest of his, no doubt, projected long day. As soon as he was dressed, he was in the kitchen with the kettle on and he prepared his toast.

"You should look into finding your Guide," Sherlock told him from his prone position on the couch. He'd been there since the night before and hadn't changed his clothes from the previous day. "You were zoned in the middle of the street. Four people were nearby and one was even a Guide that had tried to get you out of the state you were in. All of them had been about to call the SC to come and collect you. I stopped them, of course, by releasing you from your fugue state, but really, your stubbornness in this matter is quite dangerous to your health." He looked up to see his flatmate staring at him again and was about to call him back, but this wasn't a zone.

"I'm fine," John said, as he looked away to prepare his breakfast. "I have an idea who my Guide actually is, but I'm not certain on how to approach them."

"It's that _woman_ from the locum clinic isn't it," Sherlock said with what could only be described as a petulant frown and a sour, jealous sounding tone.

"No," John replied immediately and with honesty. He paused and the looked at his flatmate. "I'm quite certain that _you_ are my Guide."

Sherlock's observational and highly active mind halted for half a moment before spinning with all occasions that his presence and help had pulled John out of a '_zoned_' condition. "The presence of those other Guides didn't help," he muttered. "They couldn't help you. I could...I did?"

"No they couldn't," John confirmed. "I activated the day I met you." He confessed. He looked up when Sherlock sat up quickly and looked at him. He turned around to prepare his tea and continued, "My senses became heightened or activated for the first time when I stepped in the Laboratory at Bart's and met you. I was still classed as a GNA Sentinel at that the time. Still have my papers somewhere..."

"That's just sentimental twaddle," Sherlock said in a matter of fact tone. His body zinged with shivers of anticipation for something that his mind couldn't quite define. '_I'm his Guide,_' he thought. '_How is that possible?_'

"At the time, I thought so too," John replied, as he sipped his tea. "But until that day I was classed as GNA Sentinel on _all_ my records. It's why I'm still permitted to have my gun, Sentinels have '_special circs_' as we said in the Army. Just in case I activate because my _Guide_ is in trouble."

"Why didn't you tell me this before now," Sherlock asked. "We're knee deep in a case. We can't bond while I need my brain cells to process it."

"I didn't know if you wanted to be bonded to be honest," John told him. "You gave every indicator that you believed no one would want you and I didn't want to spook you." He shrugged with a smile and said, "It's best to know the worst about each other, don't you think? I needed time to get to know you and you needed to test me, didn't you?"

"But your re-training," Sherlock asked. He ignored the issue of testing John. The man had been right about that, with the kind of insight that made him fascinating to Sherlock's ordered mind. The experiments at home and the body parts left lying around. They were a kind of test...a test to see how long it would take for John to walk out on him in exasperation, which truthfully he did from time to time, but he always came back. His attention returned just as quickly to react in surprised, pleased, shock at John's answer regarding his continued education prospects.

"Forensic Pathology," John replied. "Specific to evidence gathering and analysis, I want to be Government certified so that when you get called into the Yard for a case you'll have me there to back you up, instead of putting up with someone else." The name '_Anderson_' was left un-stated, but it was understood. "Together we'd get a true consulting fee and you'd still be able to choose the cases you wanted to help out with. I'd be asked to different cases whether you choose to come along or not, but you'd get your hand in more of the Yard's business with me being your Sentinel and my being a fully qualified pathologist."

He finished preparing his tea and placed a cup near his flatmate with an extra piece of toast on his plate to share in case the younger man would accept some type of food at this time. "I thought you could always take off, while I do the preliminary work or you can stick around in case I zone when I'm collecting evidence."

"We're not bonded and that's why you're zoning more and more," Sherlock stated. "Are you sure, it's me?"

"Whenever I've zoned," John admitted between mouthfuls of his breakfast. "You were the only one to pull me out of it. I'll probably have to be re-tested at the SC once I'm bonded because they will be using methods to cause a deeper zone in which to prove that _my_ Guide can get me out of it. I confess that I'd rather be in a permanent comma than have any other Guide pull me out of the fugue state. It's you and no one else."

"Interesting," Sherlock said. Then he asked in a sly manner, "Is that why you invested in a queen sized bed?"

"Pure indulgence," John replied with a nod and a cheeky grin. "...but yes. I was thinking about my Guide and bonding when I broke down and purchased it. I know I'm going to need the closeness, but we'll need to talk quite a bit before we do anything permanent." He took in the shocked look and continued, "It will be a possessive and permanent bond. You need to be aware of just how deeply I'll need you and I'm hoping that you'll be accepting of that need, however I don't want to push you into anything."

"Can we bond before we return to the bank when you go to tell Sebastien that the case has been solved," Sherlock asked. He waved his hand against the gesture of a question coming his way and said, "I know it's not solved yet, but I will be solving this case and I...well...I'd...um." He seemed to be at a loss for words, which was a strange thing for him.

"I think I understand," John said with another nod, having received more answers from that statement alone and from the intriguing flush he noticed on his flatmate's complexion. "For now we'll continue on like we always have, until something connects Van Coon and Lukis because I know that something has to connect the two of them."

"I agree," Sherlock said, as he swept up the toast that his Sentinel had made for him. He scarfed it down quickly and without thought, before he went to change his clothing for the day. "You'll trace Lukis' path, won't you?"

"I have his journal with me," John confirmed. "Don't worry...since I'm rested I have more control over my senses. They do tend to be duller without you around, but I'll just take something of yours, something with scent to ground me while I trace his path."

"Like what," Sherlock asked when he came back into the sitting room.

"Your extra scarf," John said. "Maybe the one you wore yesterday?"

Sherlock picked up his scarf and wrapped it around John's neck. "If it helps..." He grinned, as he noticed the deep inhale that the old man did in the presence of the soft scarf. "I see that it will. Should I call you?"

"Haven't found a ringtone that suits you," John said. "Got to find a good one, maybe one that sounds like you, I think that will help me much more. In this day and age it should be easy figure out, rather than waiting for you to be called to come and help me."

"I'll load up a few audio files in your computer that you can choose from," Sherlock said. "It's time for us to go now." His mind flicking to a few choice phrases that he was planning to record. He figured that, if he texted John with a ringtone that called to him and got him out of a zone-out then he'd feel free to not worry all that much about his Sentinel. But knowing that he was _the _guide to a Sentinel and one that actually wanted him, he felt it somewhere in his bones that he'd be worried anyway.

However he was more concerned about the bonding process. He knew that it'd be intimate and probably need reinforcement from time to time. He knew that his libido would be up to anything, '_Inconvenient bodily functions,_' he thought. '_The few times I did participate in such were a minor distraction from the daily input of data I constantly receive. Maybe it'll be different with John..._' he looked at the man with the scarf touching his sensitive nose. '_God, I hope so, wouldn't want something like __**that **__to be plain ordinary and boring with him._'

"Let me put the dishes in the sink first," John told him and he moved quickly, before the man could shove him out of the door. "Let me get the journal too." He picked up a battered, well traveled notebook and re-secured his Guide's scarf around his neck before putting on his coat. "All right, now where are you going?"

"Van Coon's office," Sherlock told him. "You should start at Lukis' flat."

"Right," John said, as they both flagged down taxis to get to their respective destinations.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

Sherlock entered Van Coon's office, keeping a wide distance away from Sebastian Wilkes' office. He hated the man he used to know from his University days. The feeling was mutual and it was no wonder that the man never claimed a Guide. He was foul in his treatment and opinion of them, something that obviously had never changed with the distance of time and place.

"Ah, you must be Amanda," Sherlock said, as he stepped into the office. The woman was put together quite nicely and had her hair pinned with a unique hair-pin that he discarded with an immediate thought of '_Imitation, plastic._' Until he looked again and noted that it was, '_Hmm. Real jade, where did she obtain something like that?_'

"Mr. Holmes," she said. "What can I help you with?"

"Your boss's schedule," Sherlock said. "I'll need a copy of it," he asked as he scrolled through the computer diary looking for discrepancies. The office was plain and as minimal as the man's flat. There were no personal items in the room, only a few magazines and a _London A to Z Guide_ nearby.

"He flew back from Dalian, Friday," the PA told him. "It looks like he's had back-to-back meetings with the sales team, since."

"What about the day he died," Sherlock asked. "Can you tell me where he was?"

"Sorry," Amanda said. "There's a bit of a gap."

Sherlock frowned at the large blank space of time. The diary was full, except for that time frame.

"Oh," the PA said. "I do have all of his receipts. Will that help?"

"Get them," Sherlock said. "Print out the last six months of his schedule for me, would you?"

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

John had to follow a more common path, on foot. He started at Lukis' flat, but the man's trail didn't begin there. There were a few receipts in his journal, so he followed those, as well as the notes in the book. It took him the better part of the morning to figure out much of the man's path and direction.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

Sherlock looked around the PA's desk and then asked, "What sort of boss was he? Appreciative?"

"Er...no," Amanda replied. "I don't think that's the word I would use. The only things that Eddie appreciated came with a big price tag." She glanced at the hand cream on her desk.

"Like that," Sherlock nodded to the bottle. "He bought that for you, didn't he?"

"Something like that," she fiddled with her little green hair pin.

Sherlock shuffled the receipts again. He then sorted them quickly by date and found a cab ride that cost a bit more than normal. "Cab from home the day he died...eighteen pound and fifty."

"That would get him to the office," she confirmed.

"It wasn't rush hour," he looked at the time stamp. "Mid-morning, not the time to come into the office and eighteen pounds would get him..."

"West end," she exclaimed. "I remember him telling me that."

Sherlock looked at other receipts. "Underground," he held his, ever-present, magnifier over it and read, "Printed at one...in Piccadilly."

"So he took a tube back to the office," Amanda stated. They paused and then she asked, "Why would he take a cab into town and then a tube back?"

"He was delivering something," Sherlock muttered. He remembered the empty space in the luggage bag. "Didn't want to lug a package up the escalators..."

"Delivering?"

"Hm," Sherlock noised. He picked up another receipt and said, "He stopped on his way back...got peckish." He snapped images of the receipts for the day of Van Coon's death with his phone. He folded the diary dates of Van Coon's last six month schedule of meeting and trips and then placed them in his coat.

"This was helpful," he said, as he left her with a mess of receipts to sort out.

The poor woman just shook her head and re-filed the receipts in their proper order.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

Sherlock quickly followed the trail of receipts into a place euphemistically known as '_China Town_' or '_Little China_' in many different cities of the world. He could clearly see where he was, as the demographic heritage of the place was clearly visible on the faces of the majority of the people in this area of town and also found in the architecture of the buildings and store-front window dressings.

'_Where did you go,_' he thought. '_What brought you here?_'

He whirled around and bumped into someone that had walked into him. He looked down into the intense blue eyes of... "John," he said pleasantly surprised to see the man here. "Van Coon brought a package here the day he died. Whatever was hidden inside that suitcase? I've managed to piece together his movements using scraps of information..."

"Sherlock," John sighed and smelled the man. He was glad that he'd had the scarf, but it was missing the natural heat scent of the man by now.

"...credit card bills and receipts," Sherlock continued. He still held his friend by the arms knowing that the Doctor needed to ground his senses. "He flew back from China and came here."

"Sherlock," John said, trying now to gain the man's attention, but the other just prattled on, like normal. He gripped the man's upper arm to ground his senses in touch and to not be overwhelmed by the man's wonderful voice.

"Somewhere in this street, he had a purpose," Sherlock stated. He placed his hand over John's to help with the anchoring process. "Somewhere close, but I don't know where."

"The Lucky Cat Emporium," John said, as he smiled in gratitude to the Guide when his senses settled and then he pointed to a shop across the street. "That shop over there."

"How can you tell?"

John held up the journalist's diary. "Lukis wrote down the address. Most of his journey is in here, like point form notes, including the addresses of the places he visited."

"Oh," Sherlock said in a drab tone, while his flatmate was pleased to have the answer for his Guide. They both crossed the street after a silent look of conversation that declared they would go into the shop together.

The shop was a basic Chinese type emporium called The Lucky Cat. It looked like the main item it sold, were stereotypical _Lucky Cats_, plus some paper lanterns, Chinese fans and colourful silk sashes.

The interior of the shop looked disused and dusty. Some of the shelves looked to contain more than just lucky cats. There were other figurines, general looking Buddhas, next to pale exotic geishas and some classical warriors.

John noted the incense burning and took out a kerchief to protect his sensitive nose from its odd scent. Old oranges were around, somewhere giving off a stale citrus scent that was close to smelling more fermented than fresh.

He moved away from the shopkeeper, who kept telling him that his wife would be happy to have a Lucky Cat for only '_ten pound, only ten pound_'. He shook his head. He was curious about the price of a tea cup, without a handle, made in dainty white porcelain. He lifted one and looked underneath.

"Sherlock," he called out softly.

"I see it," Sherlock replied and then they left the shop. They walked down the street for a bit. They looked around and then nearing a fruit shop they found the answer they had been looking for. He whirled around and slapped the side of his head. "How'd I miss this?"

"Too busy looking at the puzzle pieces," John suggested. "Not enough at the picture it's supposed to make."

Sherlock looked at him in curiosity and then he explained what he knew about the markings. "It's an ancient number system called the Hang Zhou. These days only street traders use it." One of the market stalls has the number displayed in the two languages. "They were numbers!"

"Written in the bank and that the library," John asked.

"Yes," Sherlock replied. "An old Chinese dialect."

John picked on up that looked exactly like the swizzle image next to the line across the painting's eyes. "Fifteen," he said. "Look, just here! What we thought was the artist's tag...it's the number fifteen."

"The blindfold," Sherlock said, picking up another tag. "The horizontal line, it's a number as well. It's the Chinese number one."

"We've found it," John stated. He looked up when he noticed a woman with black glasses, black headscarf and a black coat taking a picture of him...he glanced at his companion and wondered, '_Or it's a picture of Sherlock?_'

He looked back, but she was gone. However he was now alerted that something was going on and he had a strong feeling that he wouldn't like it.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

**TBC...**


	6. Chapter 6

**CH 6**

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

The two men sat down in a nearby café on the same street that they'd found the Lucky Cat Emporium. They were actually sitting at a table with a full view of the small shop.

Sherlock scribbled the numbers over and over on one of the napkins at the table they were seated at.

John had ordered lunch, but this was another of Sherlock's '_free for you and your date_' places. He hadn't protested the term of date, since it was like receiving some kind of acknowledgement for his proclaimed declaration to the man he believed was his Guide.

"So," John began. "Two men travel back from China. Both from very different walks of life and both come straight to the Lucky Cat Emporium. What did they see?"

"It's not what they saw," Sherlock explained. "It's what they brought back with them."

"Ah," John noised. "You don't mean duty free." He waited for the waiter to finish placing his meal before him. "Thank you," he said as the young man moved away.

"Think about what Sebastian told us, about Van Coon," Sherlock replied softly. "...about how he kept afloat in the market?"

"Lost five million," John answered.

"Made it back a week later," Sherlock said. "This is how he made such easy money."

"He was a smuggler!"

"Guy like him," Sherlock expounded. "It would have been perfect. Businessman, making frequent trips to Asia...Lukis was the same, a journalist writing about China. Both of them smuggled stuff and that shop was their drop off."

"Why did they die, then," John asked. "I mean it doesn't make sense. If they both turn up at the shop to deliver their goods, why would someone threaten them...and kill them... after the event, after they had finished their job?"

"What if one of them was like Fagin," Sherlock asked.

"How d'you mean," John returned.

"Maybe one of them was light fingered," Sherlock explained with a waggle of his long fingers. "Stole something from the horde?" He looked across the street and noted many things about the various people walking by. But soon his attention was riveted on a phone book leaning up against a door next to that particular emporium.

"Remind me," he asked. "When was the last time that it rained?"

Sherlock stood up to leave the place quickly, but John struggled to get back into his jacket. He made sure that he had the scarf around his neck and then left the shop with a thank you, again to the owner.

The Consulting Detective leant down and noted that the phone book was fat from expanding under rainy conditions. Under the doorbell there was a hand written label with the name of Soo Lin Yao. "This book has been on the step since Monday."

He rang the bell, but there was no response. He ran down a side alley, followed by his Sentinel. He knew that the man would sense something wrong, if there was something to sense, like another corpse waiting to be discovered.

"So they're away on holiday," John replied in confusion to Sherlock's seeming urgency.

"Do you leave your windows open when you go away for a holiday," questioned Sherlock.

John looked up and noticed that the window of the flat was open. He watched the other man jump up and pull down the fire escape ladder. He quickly followed before the ladder automatically folded back up. "This isn't right," he said as he followed. "Sherlock...what are you doing?"

Sherlock went in first and held onto the vase that he had nearly knocked over. "This has spilled once before," he said softly. "See the water stains."

"Yes," John replied just as softly. "It's also smells like mould is beginning to set in." He took the vase to put it back on the ledge where it had been.

Sherlock looked around and walked through the flat quickly. He noted that it was far cleaner than Lukis', but then this Soo Lin Yao person was fastidious. "Look," he said. "Feminine touches here and there. Dried flowers, embroidered cushions, the screen...but it looks like no one has been here for days."

John looked around, but his sense of smell was picking up something else. He followed his flatmate, as the man checked the washing. It was still damp and in the machine. It, too, was beginning to smell. There were other pieces of clothing hanging from a clothes horse, near a Chinese room partition screen.

Dishes were on the draining board, all indicating a set for one. He looked around. Something was tickling his senses, something more than just the empty flat and the growing mould. He concentrated on his current senses. Touch wasn't affected and neither was taste, until Sherlock played the idiot and opened up the milk, which had really soured.

"Sherlock," he hissed, as he gagged at the smell. "You didn't need to do that."

"I needed to know," the other man replied, after he finished gagging and put the foul thing back in the fridge.

"I could have told you," John replied. He had lost his concentration on his senses. He started again, this time he closed his sense of smell because of the sour milk odor. He dialed his taste and touch, down a few more notches well below normal. He upped his sight, just a bit and his hearing a bit more than the other.

Sherlock is looking at an old photo of a baby boy and baby girl hugging either other. The finger prints he noted on the surface, which indicated that it was lovingly touched many times. He looked back to the small puddle of water, where he'd entered.

"We're not the first," he whispered. Somehow he knew that John's hearing was upped to a higher level. "John?"

"Yes," John said.

"Someone else has been here," Sherlock pointed out. "Someone broke into this flat. He knocked over that vase, just like I did. It wasn't done by the person renting the flat either, since I'd assume she knew that it was there in the first place." He hopped around, gazing at the ground and looked at the deep impressions in the carpet. "Size eight feet, he was small, but athletic. Small...strong hands, our acrobat has."

His gaze returned to the mantle where the picture was. John moved to another corner of the room, in fact he went down the small set of stairs to the front door. He was looking at the chain and locks. '_Not chained_,' he thought. '_Wonder when Sherlock will realize that the intruder is still here?...I have to pretend to leave!_'

John unlocked the door and opened it. He let the mail fall onto the floor of the entrance, as he heard his Guide continue with his deductions. He prodded them into the apartment with his foot before he shut the door.

"Why didn't he close the window when he left," Sherlock paused. He gasped and then said, "Oh, stupid...stupid! Obvious..." He glanced around and whispered, "He's still here."

A shadow moved quickly out from behind the Consulting Detective. The hubris of a killer, who thought they had enough time and had calculated things down to the minute of death. Didn't think that the second man was bright enough to come back up the stairs in time and he used a long piece of clothing or towel to strangle the taller man. However the killer was surprised to feel his own neck being affected in the same manner.

The killer kicked back to dislodge the second man, but was blocked by someone that knew hand-to-hand combat. He felt the noose tighten about his own neck and his concentration was shot. He looked around quickly. He released the man under him and sent two elbows shots behind him to get the other man to release his hold.

His own noose was loosened, but he received a couple of quick punches from below on his legs from his first victim, as he struck the man behind him. He twisted away from the dual embrace by flipping his attacker, the one behind him, over his head, but was quickly taken aback by the fact that the shorter man had landed on his feet, still holding his version of the garrotte, which was just a plain coloured scarf that had twisted in place and continued to choke him.

The killer eventually broke free of the scarf with a swift movement of his hands and arms. He punched forward, which John blocked quite efficiently, much to Sherlock's surprise, as he had moved away quickly from the two combatants in order to try and gain his breath back. However the killer moved with more swiftness and precision, as he swept the feet of his opponent and then leapt over the table and out the window, that they had all entered.

Both Londoners ran to the window, with the intension of following, but the killer was too swift. He'd scaled up the fire escape ladder and had jumped across to the neighbouring roof. "Told you," Sherlock said in a hoarse voice. "An acrobat!"

"Yes, yes," John huffed. "Now, let me see your neck...and I'm sorry about your scarf."

"We have to bring it with us," Sherlock replied, as he lifted his chin to reveal his neck that was beginning to bruise a bit. "It's my scarf and I don't want the police to find it."

"We'll ice your neck when we get home," John said. "Let's get out of here before the neighbours report something to the local police."

"They won't," Sherlock said. He looked down at the mail in the entrance and noted that one envelope did not contain a letter. All that was written on it was:

_Soo Lin, please ring me. Tell me you're OK. Andy_

The other side of the envelope had a logo and a name, '_National Antiquities Museum._'

"Let's go question this young man then," John suggested, since it was clear that his Guide didn't want to delay the case. His flatmate hailed a taxi to take them to the museum.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

They met with a young man named Andrew Galbraith, who preferred the name Andy.

"When was the last time you saw her," Sherlock asked. He scanned the display area and noted much of the items in there.

"Three days ago, actually," Andy replied. "Here, at the museum. They asked me to look into something, but she was more knowledgeable. When I asked why she wasn't assigned the task, they told me that she'd resigned...just like that. She even left her work unfinished too."

John too looked around and asked, "What was the last thing that she did on her final day?"

Andy led them to a storage area. There were large items draped in dusty sheets. Some of the antiquities in the area were in need of repair. Limbs to display dummies were scattered about several tables. He led them to a rolling cabinet, opened to a particular section.

"There," he said and pointed. "She does this demonstration of the tourists...a tea ceremony. She'd have packed her things away and put them in here."

John looked into the cabinet. He scented the spray paint, but it was not in the cabinet.

Sherlock was quick to note that one of the statues did not have its dust cover. He strode over to it and noted that it too contained the same cipher, as that at the bank and the library. "John," he called, as he snapped the image of the vandalized statue. "Look!"

John looked and his sense of smell registered the aerosol spray. "It's the same paint," he said. "It's faded, but there."

There wasn't much left to do, so they thanked the young man for his assistance and retained his card in case they needed his assistance or access to the museum again.

They walked down the steps away from the main museum entrance and Sherlock observed that they needed to get to Soo Lin Yao before the killer did.

"If she's still alive," John replied. "That cipher...it means that he's planning to kill her next."

"That's why he was in the flat," Sherlock nodded. "He was waiting for her, but I suspect that he's not going to find her...not there anyway."

"Sherlock," Raz, the spray painting street youth called out to them, as he ran up to meet them. "Oi, Sherlock! I found something you'll like."

"Lead on," Sherlock said. He noted that John sighed, but also that the man still followed him and Raz without any kind of verbal complaint. '_He'll need to sleep soon or else his senses will overwhelm the control he's trying to maintain at this hour. Plus he wants to care for my wounds, not that I don't know how to do that on my own. The wonder is that I want him to,_' he paused in his thoughts. '_Interesting!_'

Sherlock may not have realized it consciously, but he was now exhibiting the behaviours of a claimed Guide. It was a natural occurrence, but not something that he'd studied up since his University days. He walked closer to John and allowed the man to ground his senses in his presence. It was something that he'd already done several times without noting its significance and in this kind of situation he was truly a blind man without any supporting data.

They all arrived at an abandoned tube station shortly after they had met on the museum steps. The place had been converted into a sort of skate park, as there were no Community Officers in this location and hadn't been for the longest time due to the amount of spray painted logos, tags, images, etc..., which were found on the visible surfaces in the area.

"Perfect place," Sherlock observed. "If you wanted to hide a tree then the best place to do it is in a forest, wouldn't you say? People would just walk past it, not knowing...not able to decipher the message."

"Not caring about it either," John interjected, as he watched some of the stunts being performed by the youth of the area.

"There," Raz pointed to a column filled with paint tags. The bright yellow was still visible, but it was clear that there had been more to the message than just the two numbers that they'd discovered during the course of their investigation.

"They've been here," Sherlock observed. "It's the exact same paint, right?"

"Yes," John said, as he leant forward to sniff it. He sneezed, but nodded. "It's exactly the same."

"Excellent," Sherlock said. "You go up along the railway line. Look for more of that same colour. If we're going to decipher more of this message, we're going to need more than just two numbers."

John looked around, but noted that the youth had already left them to their mystery. He turned back to ask something of Sherlock, but realized that he had been left behind again. He shook his head with a fond smile and walked out from the tunnels, to the railway lines. He followed a likely direction.

Sherlock followed another direction, through a rounded passage. He noticed more of the yellow paint and found a can of the stuff in a corner with other debris. He picked it up and sniffed it. It had the same strong scent of zinc, as predicted by his contact Raz.

He followed the trail out of the tunnels, but before he left, his eye caught sight of a particularly interesting poster. He tore off part of the lower corner, with contact information and tucked it away into one of the deep pockets of his coat.

Meanwhile, John found a few drips of yellow paint on the grass and the railroad tie under his feet. He used his cell phone to light the way, ever thankful that he'd recharged it recently. He followed the trail further until he reached a free standing wall that once used to hold a loading crane for the cargo trains. He took a deep breath and nearly zoned on the smell of the paint, but he quickly pushed Sherlock's scarf under his nose and inhaled the interesting scent of his Guide. The scent of it was fading under the myriad of others from the travels they'd done that day, but it was still there and did its job.

He didn't want to zone on that scent so he released it and then let his eyes adjust to the dim light of the area. It wasn't a conscious thought, but suddenly his eyesight was similar to that of a cat's. He could see the yellow paint on that free standing wall, as though it had been broad daylight.

'_Bloody hell,_' he thought. He stepped back and lifted his phone in order to see the whole of it through the lens. '_I need to take a picture of it._' He mentally adjusted the image of his internal X-Ray machine level to just slightly above normal sight and then he snapped a couple of pictures of the entire message markings that he had found.

He double checked his phone and made sure that he had the whole of it because Sherlock would not be happy with only part of the puzzle. He lifted his phone to see the number of bars available and then tried to phone his flatmate.

Sherlock was following his own path in the opposite direction. He barely registered a shout in his direction and continued on, until he heard his name clearly and looked up to see John running toward him.

The good Doctor was slightly out of breath, until he stood straight up, held out his hand and said, "Phone!"

"What?"

"Give me your phone," John said in a tone that couldn't be denied by any Guide. He took the phone and looked at it. He lifted it up to see if there had been no reception or if the other man had been deliberately ignoring his phone. He walked back a ways where the reception had been strongest.

"Answer your bloody phone when I call you," he said, as he handed the phone back to Sherlock, who looked at it quizzically. "I found it and have been calling you for the last fifteen minutes."

"Ah," Sherlock noised. He may have felt a small, momentary pang of regret for not answering the call from his Sentinel, but it was quickly squashed under the reasonable conclusion that there had been no way of knowing that it had been John calling him. "Where then?"

"This way," John said and led him back to the wall that he'd found the full cipher. He started sneezing, as they neared the dark free standing wall. "Oh hell," he said and had run the rest of the way. He walked around it and explained. "It was here. Twenty minutes ago it was full of yellow ciphers and graffiti."

Sherlock barely touched the wall and his finger tips came away with gray paint. "Someone didn't want me to see it."

He immediately grabbed John's head in between his hands and spun him around, all the while demanding that John concentrate. That he needed the man to fully remember what had been written, until John told him that he remembered everything, "Really," Sherlock replied with doubt clear in his tone of voice. "The average human memory on visual matters is only sixty-two percent."

"Yeah, well don't worry," John told him, as soon as he could get away from the spinning and dizzying sensation that his Guide had created. "I remember all of it."

"Really," Sherlock asked.

"I would, if I can get to my pockets," John stated, as he pulled out his phone. "I took pictures."

"Oh," Sherlock replied. "Let's go home then, so we can figure it out."

"You can," John said. "I'm due at the clinic in the morning."

"What?"

"Locum hours to supplement income," John replied. "Plus, I need the sleep."

"But," Sherlock protested.

"No," John said. "We agreed that I need sleep in order to control my senses, so you'll let me sleep while you mull over the images I took. You'll be doing that whether I'm...yawn...awake or asleep anyway and I won't be of help with that since I'm not good with ciphers. I'll be gone for a half day only, so let it be."

"Very well," Sherlock said, as they climbed the stairs to their flat, after they'd been dropped off by the taxi that they managed to catch.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

Sherlock spent the better part of the night and well into the early morning trying to figure out why the message was placed at that location and what it actually meant. He muttered to himself for most of the night until he hit on to the reason.

"Of course," he said in a gasped whisper. "He wants information. He's contacting all his people in the underworld. Whatever was stolen, he wants it back. Whatever it is, it's here written in code. We can't crack this without Soo Lin Yao's help. She must know the key."

"John," he shouts up the stairs to the other man's room. "John," he ran up the stairs and opened the door to discover the bed was empty. There was a folded note on one of the small, single drawer night tables next to the large bed.

_Sherlock,_

_I know you've forgotten, but I've gone to locum clinic in order to get oriented for work. I should return by noon. Keep your phone handy in case they need to call my Guide and please answer when they do call._

_John_

"You idiot," Sherlock muttered, as he took the note and tucked it into his dressing gown pocket. He sniffed and realized that a shower should be the first order of the day, before fetching his Sentinel.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

Sherlock ended up pre-occupied by the double number cipher, but when his phone rang for the seventh time he picked it up. He only tersely said, "Yes, what is it?"

"I'm sorry," a female voice said. "Is this Sherlock Holmes?"

"Yes," Sherlock replied. "I should hope so."

"Could you please come to the clinic," the woman said in a concerned tone. "It's about Doctor Watson."

"Text me the address, I'll be right there," Sherlock replied. He received the address and in less than ten minutes he was there and taken to the office room that had been assigned to his flatmate. "What happened?"

"He was reading a case file and I'm guessing the difference in lighting caused a zone," the woman said. "I'm Sarah, by the way."

"Of course you are," Sherlock said, as he walked into the room where John was sitting in a frozen state. He sighed, walked up the Doctor and put his hand on the man's neck to rub a spot just below the ear. His touch was working and then he said, "John, your attention please. We need to find Soo Lin Yao."

John blinked and stood up. "Right," he said and then he focussed on his location. "Oh," he looked sheepishly at his new supervisor. "I'm sorry Sarah. How many did I miss?"

"Only two," she said. "Your shift is considered done anyway. So we'll see you in a few days?"

"What," he asked.

"You're next shift is for the day after tomorrow," she said. "We'll expect a full day out of you then." She teased him and received a venomous look from the taller man, who received a smirk for his troubled expression.

"Of course," John replied, as he was helped out of his white coat and helped into his outdoor jacket by his proclaimed Guide. The scarf he'd used that morning was replaced by the one that the man had worn on his way to the clinic, while the one he'd '_borrowed_' was wrapped around the younger man's neck. "Later then!"

"Later," Sarah said, as she watched the two men leave. She shook her head and then made a note on John's personnel file that his flatmate was likely to be the man's true Guide. She chose not to report it to the SC, as she had the sneaking suspicion that neither man wanted to reveal it, not until they'd bonded completely. '_Looks like they'll be close to fixing that particular problem soon,_' she thought. '_They'd better, for John's sake._'

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

**TBC...**


	7. Chapter 7

**CH 7**

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

John and Sherlock arrived at the antiquities room at the museum to speak to Andy and, hopefully, to gain his help with finding the runaway girl named, Soo Lin Yao. They were in the same room that they'd initially interviewed him about the girl.

"Two men died after visiting China," Sherlock told the young man. "The killer left them messages, written in the Hang Zhou number system."

"Soo Lin Yao is in danger," John said. "That cipher on the statue, it was in the same pattern as the others. He means to kill her as well."

"I've tried everywhere," Andy told them. "Her friends; her colleagues, I just don't know where she'd gone. She could be a thousand miles away."

John noticed that his Guide was focussed on a teapot display. It was the same display that he'd seen days ago in the newspaper. "What is it Sherlock," he asked. "What are you looking at?"

"Tell me more about those tea pots," he pointed to the set of five small brown clay pots in the display.

"Those were Soo Lin's obsession," Andy explained. "They need urgent work because if they dry out, they'll crumble. Apparently you have to keep making tea in them."

"Last time we were here, only one of those pots was shining," Sherlock told them. John looked at Sherlock and nodded to indicate that he'd follow his lead in this matter.

Later that night, a small lone woman, brewed some tea in the darkness of the antiquities storage room. She was intent on her work, but was shocked and startled by the voice that asked her, "Fancy a biscuit with that?"

The woman gasped and dropped the third pot of a delicate set of five. Luckily it was caught by a tall man that said, "Centuries old...Don't want to break that."

A light had come on and she looked slightly relieved to see that the man was taller than the person she'd thought it would be. "Hello," Sherlock said. "Soo Lin Yao!"

"You saw that cipher then," she said. "You know that he is coming for me."

"You've been clever," Sherlock acknowledged. "So far you've managed to avoid him."

"I had to finish," Soo Lin looked lovingly at the pots in front of her. "But it is only a matter of time. I know that he will find me."

"Who is he? You've met him before?" Sherlock asked.

"When I was a girl, living in China," Soo Lin nodded. "I recognize his...'_signature_'."

"The cipher," John asked.

Soo Lin nodded and explained. "Only he would do this. Zhi Zhu!"

"It means '_The Spider_,'" Sherlock explained. They watched, as the girl unlaced her runner and lifted her right foot to show a tattoo on the bottom of it. It was a nearly full circle with a silhouetted black flower in the centre.

"You know this mark," she asked.

"It's the mark of a Tong," Sherlock said. He looked at John and then he explained. "It's an ancient crime syndicate, based in China."

"Every foot soldier bears the mark," the girl explained. "Everyone who hauls for them has this mark."

"Hauls," John asked. "You mean...you were a smuggler too?"

Soo Lin explained that when she was fifteen her parents had passed away. Her livelihood was in her own hands and that there hadn't been much money to begin with. There had been no other way, except to work for the '_Bosses_', as she called them.

"Who are they," Sherlock asked.

"They are called the '_Black Lotus_'," she said. "By the time I was sixteen I was taking thousands of pounds worth of drugs across the border into Hong Kong. I'm not proud of what I had done, but I had managed to leave that life for good." She paused and then continued. "I came to England, studied here and they gave me a job. I had a new life."

"Then he caught up with you," John stated.

"Yes," she confirmed. "I had hoped that after five years, that maybe they would have forgotten about me. But they never really let you leave. He came three days ago and asked me to help him track down something that was stolen."

"You have no idea what it is," Sherlock asked.

"I refused to help," she said. "The cipher is a punishment." She sighed. "_He_ is ruthless...a fanatic that would strike down anyone...even family, if they are seen to betray him."

"You knew him well," John asked. "When you were living back in China?"

"Oh yes," she gave him a sad, resigned look. "He is my brother."

Sherlock looked away and thought of his own brother for a moment there. There was something in that statement that echoed in him, but he re-focussed on the situation at hand because he felt John place his hand on his arm.

John's eyes were focussed above them, to the skylight and the glass patterned roof. He thought that he'd seen movement up there, but by the time he took hold of Sherlock's arm the shadow had disappeared. His hand remained on that of his acknowledged Guide.

"When our parents died we were very young," Soo Lin began. "I was four and my brother Liang was a little older. Orphans...we had no choice. We could work for the Black Lotus or starve in the streets like beggars. My brother became their puppet...he fell into the power of the one they call Shan, the Black Lotus General." She looked at them and said, "When I refused, he said that I had betrayed him. Next day I came to work, I saw the cipher waiting for me."

Sherlock pulled out a copy of the full cipher message and the others from the library and bank. "Can you decipher this?"

"They're numbers," Soo Lin explained.

"Yes," Sherlock said. "We figured that part out already. What we need is how to decipher it?"

"All smugglers know it," Soo Lin began. "It's based upon a book..."

The lights were turned off. Everything is dark and black. Shadows, upon shadows created the atmosphere of terror and a drum began to beat. Thump and click, dum, dum, thump and click, click. The sound repeated and vibrated deeply in the museum.

The assassin was not alone.

"He's here," she whispers. "He has found me." She was pulled to the floor by John, whose sight had expanded and yet he couldn't see where the sound was coming from. It was echoing in the most disorienting way.

Sherlock leapt to his feet and followed the sound much more quickly. He ran into the main room, but it was dark everywhere. '_John should be the one looking for this man,_' he thought. '_But I love the chase too._'

Moonlight lit the area with eerie blues and pale dim beams of light. Creepy shadows formed from the museum objects, lengthening and deepening as normal imagination took over.

He stared up the walls and to the grand staircase. He thought he saw a shadow move and thought once more that John should be the one here, since with his sight, he'd have been able to see the assassin.

"BANG!"

A gunshot rang out in the room. Sherlock ducked out of the way by hiding behind something marble.

John's ears picked up the sound of the shot. His head lifted and his instincts to protect his Guide surged. He wanted to run out there and hunt the one that was endangering the life of his one true Guide. He looked to Soo Lin and whispered, "I'm sorry, but I _have_ got to go." His voice spoke of his fear and need. "Bolt the door after me."

The thump, thump of the drum was louder. Click, click, click, sounded in rapid succession to the percussive, ominous thumps.

Sherlock belly crawled around the displays. He peered over some kind of railing and a second shot rang out. He knew that he should have felt something, air disturbance...a graze...something. He looked to the wall nearby, but there were no visible marks or newly formed holes. '_Where did the bullet hit, then? Are they even real bullets or what?_'

John sprinted into the room and crouched quickly behind a display as another shot rang out. He looked in the direction of his Guide and noted that the stubborn git started to run up the stairs as more shots rang out. '_Bloody bastard,_' he thought, as he raced up the opposite set of stairs that led up to the same overlooking balcony.

Unfortunately or rather fortunately they did not meet up with the killer. They followed the path and through several halls and galleries. They ended up in the Anthropology Gallery. There were more gun shots. There were heavier, more ominous drum sounds and several shots at the display that Sherlock had taken shelter behind.

Of course he quipped in a harsh tone, "That skull is over two hundred thousand years old. Have a bit of respect for archeology!"

Just as suddenly that the shots began they stopped. The drums stopped on a final click of the sticks.

All was silence!

John hearing had been turned up and he had noted the number of heartbeats in the area. He knew that there was one missing now. '_No!_' He thought. He looked around frantically. "Oh, my god!"

He ran back the way he came and hoped against hope that it wasn't Sherlock's beat that he'd lost. He hoped that it wasn't anyone he knew, but he suspected that he should never have left the girl.

'_Sherlock,_' he thought furiously. '_You had better be alive, you long legged pillock._'

Sherlock had chosen to leave his protective display and get back to Soo Lin. He caught sight of John running to down the stairs to get back to the girl.

John looked up and sighed in relief when he spotted his flatmate.

A final shot rang out!

John looked in the direction of the storage rooms where he'd left the girl alone. He smelt the hot, fresh blood, the tang of the gunpowder and heard the slump of a body that had drifted to the ground. He barely heard the running feet of the killer leaving the area.

He ran into the room and could only see the pale hand in moonlight. It rested on the top of the girl's working station and held a black origami flower in its pale palm. He jumped as a centuries old clay teapot shattered on the floor next to a pool of blood that started the coagulation process. He saw the human heat of the body change to a dull and dead colour spectrum.

Sherlock turned up just then and noted the expression on the Sentinel's face. It showed his horror and fear, confusion and relief, as soon as his Guide touched his arm to turn him away.

The younger man was shocked as he'd been suddenly wrapped up in strong arms. He felt the other man scenting him, seeking the dangerous vapour of gunpowder. The Sentinel sighed and sagged, a final squeezed released the poker stiff Guide, who'd not been used to such touching and yet the younger man did nothing to reject or turn the good Doctor away.

"I called the police," Sherlock said.

John snorted in disbelief.

"All right," the other man admitted. "I texted that new DI."

"I thought as much," John said. He picked up the copies of the image that they'd brought along for Soo Lin's help in deciphering the message. He just folded it up and tucked it away to look at it later.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

**Later at the Yard**

Sherlock was on a rampage. He paced fiercely, back and forth in front of Dimmock's desk. He was vexed and irritated by the new Detective Inspector. '_The man is a bloody wall_,' he thought. '_How is this information not shaping up into something of a pattern of relevance?_' He paused and looked at the man's stubborn expression. '_Just how did that man earn his warrant card, if he was such a lack wit?_'

John was upset and angry with his hindsight. He didn't feel guilty or that he should take any blame for his actions because he was naturally concerned for the man he'd declared to be his guide. He looked at the DI's closed face and then exploded. "HOW many more murders is it going to take before you start believing that these cases are linked? A young girl was gunned down tonight...that's three victims in three days, all with the same calling card of that stupid bit of black paper. Those are not coincidences!"

Sherlock rested a hand on John's arm to stop him. He nodded, as the man took a deep breath to calm down. He allowed John to remove his scarf and replace it with the one that had been around his neck. He released the arm as the man inhaled the scent from it.

He turned to Dimmock and stated, "Brian Lukis and Eddie Van Coon were working for a gang of international smugglers. The gang is called the _Black Lotus_ and they're operating right here in London, under your very nose."

"Can you prove that," Dimmock asked. He didn't believe them, but there was no harm in finding out if that was the truth or not.

Sherlock just grinned and said, "Meet you at the morgue." He looked to John and said, "See you there."

John nodded, since he'd already suspected that his flatmate was about to go charm a susceptible Miss Molly Hooper, into allowing them access to the bodies.

Sure enough a half hour later, they were there and looking at the bodies of the girl and the two previously killed men.

"Just the feet," Sherlock told her.

"The feet," she repeated in a confused tone.

"Yes," Sherlock said.

"O...kay," she said and unzipped the body bags. She looked at the bottom of the feet and noted that on one of them there was a tattooed stamp of an exotic flower within a circle. She did the same to the other man and then the girl that had just been brought in.

Sherlock turned to the young DI and grinned victoriously at the man. It was definitely a '_So there!_' facial expression and Dimmock just didn't like it.

"So," Dimmock said.

"So either these two, wholly unconnected men and that girl just happened to visit the same Chinese tattoo parlour," Sherlock said. "Or I'm telling you the truth!"

Dimmock sighed and then asked, "What do you want?"

"I want every book from Lukis' apartment," Sherlock said. "_And_ Van Coon's, plus whatever the girl had in hers."

"Their books," Dimmock asked in confusion and turned to John who just nodded.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

Later into that same eventful night, they arrived home. The comfort of 221B Baker Street calmed John's senses and part of his outward concerns. He was still visibly shaken by the death of the poor girl, but the relief that his unclaimed Guide was safe overruled any other feelings on the matter.

"It's not just a criminal network," Sherlock began. "It's a cult. Her brother had been corrupted by one of its leaders."

"Soo Lin said the name..."

Sherlock nodded, "Yes, Shan! _General Shan_! In Chinese it mean _The Mountain_."

"We're still not closer to finding them," John stated.

"Wrong!" Sherlock declared in a tone that said he took some small enjoyment in telling someone that they were wrong. John only sent him a small smile and waved at him to continue. "We know almost all there is to know. She gave us most of the missing pieces."

"Why would he go to see his sister," Sherlock looked at John pointedly. "Why would he need _her_ expertise?"

John frowned in thought. "She worked at the museum."

"Exactly," Sherlock crowed.

"An expert in antiquities..." John paused, as he thought a bit longer on the subject. "Ah, of course, I see, it's a matter of tracking down something old and valuable."

"Ancient relics of China, purchased on the black market," Sherlock confirmed. "China's home to a thousand treasures, much was hidden after Mau's revolution."

"The Black Lotus is selling them," John continued. He then watched as his flatmate claimed his laptop, but he didn't protest it, this time around.

Sherlock keyed his search quickly and soon he had the right web address up. He scanned through the images and found two Ming vases with unusual shapes. "Look, check the dates," he said. "They arrived from China a week ago and the donor was Anonymous. Two _rare_ treasures, undiscovered from the East."

"One in Lukis' suitcase and one from Van Coon," John said.

Sherlock ran a search. He looked for anything from the anonymous source and with a country origin of China or note of Chinese origin.

"Here's another one," he pointed out. "A month ago, a Chinese ceramic statue and sold for four hundred thousand." He looked further and found another.

"There," John pointed. "Look, a month before that, there's a Chinese painting for half a million."

"All from an anonymous source," Sherlock said as he turned to John, who'd leant against him for proximity and sense grounding. "They're stealing them in China and then one-by-one they're bringing them to Britain."

John looked at the date of submission with his brow furrowed in thought. Then he reached for Lukis' journal and the print outs of Van Coon's computer planner. He noted the dates of the auctions and then makes notes on the travel times of both men.

He creates a list on a separate piece of paper and then showed it to Sherlock, saying, "Every single auction coincides with either of them travelling to China."

Sherlock took the list and then said, "So, if one of those men was greedy back when they were in China, if they stole something..."

"That's why they were killed," John said. "They had to send the assassin."

They both heard a knock at their door. It was only Mrs. Hudson, who was confused, as she said, "Are we collecting for charity, Sherlock?"

John pursed his lips together. He didn't think that his flatmate would do anything for any charitable organization.

"What," came the confused response, as this was something that Sherlock had never been asked before.

"A young man's outside with a crate of books," she explained.

Sherlock said, "Let them in, it's for the case."

Box upon box were transported into their flat. They were stacked high and clearly marked whose was whose.

Sherlock showed the part of the cipher that they'd shown to Soo Lin Yao and where the girl had marked down a couple of words. '_It would have been better, if she'd just told us the name of the book,_' he thought. '_But I suppose she was still of a mind to protect her gang in order to hopefully save herself in some way._'

"The numbers...," Sherlock pointed out. "They're references."

"To books," John asked.

"To specific pages in a book," Sherlock nodded. "Specific words on specific pages."

"Right," John replied. "So, _15_ and _1_...that means?"

"You turn to page fifteen and it's the first word that you read," Sherlock explained.

"Okay," John said with a wary eye to the boxes and books within them. "So? What's the message?"

"Depends on the book," Sherlock said. "It would never be the same book twice. That's the cunning aspect of a book code. It's got to be something that they both own."

John stared at the pile of boxes. "There're only three boxes for Soo Lin's books. Let's start with hers. If she started deciphering them for you then she has to have the same copy of the book."

"Right," Sherlock said. "You start there and I'll begin to pile them."

John nodded and pulled up a spreadsheet program on his laptop. He figured it would be easier to make a column for each victim and then list the names of the books under each. Hopefully some of the books will match and then they can go from there.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

**Locum Surgery the following Day**

Sarah walked into the reception room and noticed that there was a long queue of patients. '_Odd,_' she thought. '_This shouldn't be happening._'

She walked to the receptionist and asked, "What's going on?"

"That locum you hired," the woman behind the desk said. "He hasn't buzzed the intercom for ages."

"Let me go and have a word with him," she said. She knocked on the door. No answer from within. "John," she thought she heard something. She opened the door and called out softly, just in case he was zoned out, but heard a soft snore instead. "John?"

She looked in, shook her head and grinned.

Later, when he finally left his office he was surprised that there weren't more patients for him to see. "I'm terribly sorry," he said. "I thought that there were more to see."

"I might have done one or two of yours," Sarah replied with a smile.

John looked at her quizzically, "One or two?"

"Maybe more like five or six," she replied.

"I'm sorry," John told her. "Not very professional, again I am so sorry."

"No," she agreed. "Not very."

"Bit of a late one," John replied. "I'm surprised that I haven't zoned today."

"So am I," Sarah said. She watched him drift away, but was curious. "What were you doing? I mean to keep you up so late? Anything to do with your Guide?"

"Sort of," John replied. "I was helping him sort a lot of books for a case he's working on. We lost track of the time."

"Ah," Sarah said. "You're set to come back in three days. Hopefully you'll be rested for your shift."

"Promise," John said and then he left the clinic in order to go home to the smell of his Guide. He missed him all day and didn't have a scarf to comfort the Sentinel in him.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

**TBC...**


	8. Chapter 8

**CH 8**

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

John came home and decided that he needed some time to clean himself up from the last few days. Running after his flatmate was not something that he'd had in mind, but he knew that this was how the cases would be for the while. He also grinned at the thought that despite appearances to the contrary, his flatmate cared about him in some kind of twisted way.

Refreshed from his nightly ablutions, he dressed with some care, since he figured that they'd be running off again or at the very least stepping out for Sherlock's brain to get some fresh air or maybe a fresh perspective.

Sherlock looked up when he heard that John had come down the stairs. He quickly put on his jacket and said, "I need to get some air to the brain. We're going out tonight."

"Thought so," John replied. "Well I'm ready, where to?"

"What," Sherlock looked at him in a bit of shock. He looked at John's expectant face. He'd momentarily stopped his thoughts because of one that pervaded his mind, '_He thought so?_'

"Sherlock," John reached out and stole the scarf his unclaimed Guide had been wearing for the last few minutes. It was soon replaced with a colder one, since it had been hanging up by the door. "Where to?"

"Right, going out," Sherlock said and put on a pair of dark gloves. He took out a small slip of paper from his wallet and handed it to John. "Here!"

John looked at it and then he smelled it. "You took this from that railway area with the skaters?"

Sherlock grinned and explained, "It's part of a poster that was stuck on one of the walls. The images on it were very unique."

John looked at the scrap which only had word '_CIRCUS_' on it, plus a number to reach the box office to book tickets for it.

They arrived at a theatre that specialized in these kinds of bookings and events, where John was finally able to see the full poster advertisement, '_The Yellow Dragon Circus_'.

"Interesting," John hummed.

"Isn't it," Sherlock answered with excitement in his voice. It was nearly the same tone, as when he had figured out that the Pink Lady's suitcase had to be pink based on the clothes that she'd been wearing the day she'd been found murdered. "The Yellow Dragon Circus, in London for only one day. The Tong sent an assassin..."

"Dressed up as a tight rope walker," John exhaled. "Promise me you'll behave, Sherlock."

Sherlock just looked at him and rambled on anyway, "A killer who can climb; someone that can shinny up a rope. Where else would you find someone with that level of dexterity? Exit visas are scarce in China. They'd need some valid reason to get out of the country, wouldn't they? I just need to have a little look around the place, so I called up some company for you."

"What," John asked and then noticed someone familiar. "Sarah, what are you doing here?"

"Sherlock called," she replied, as she came into view next to him. "He said it was an apology for having kept you awake too long the night before. He also wanted me here to pose as your date, something about keeping others occupied." She looked from one to the other and said, "A bit of adventure I thought, and it has been so long since I've been to any kind of Circus, I just couldn't decline."

"Ah," John turned a mild glare towards his flatmate who didn't look regretful at all. "You'd better not have put her in any danger by bringing her here at a time like this."

"Hey," Sarah called out. "I do have a few tricks up my sleeve to protect myself."

John held his breath for half a moment in order to calm down and then released it, as he said, "It was your choice to come along." He held out his arm for his boss. "Shall we," he asked in a mildly cheerful tone. "I've never been to a Circus, so you'll have to be my guide in this situation."

Sherlock jumped at that statement and then he frowned, as he watched his Sentinel lead another Guide to the performance. He didn't like the statement. '_I'm his Guide, Be logical Sherlock, he's not saying she's his true Guide. The word guide has many meanings, but since we've not bonded, it makes this situation tricky._' He looked about the room and noticed that there were no seating arrangements for the audience. '_Ah, one of the old world type of Circuses, where the classes mixed and different performances took place at the same times. Clients could choose to see what they wanted to see, but it looks like there's only going to be one act at a time here, interesting._' He looked around and noted the set up, '_Candles to create a gloomy atmosphere, how predictable...probably to create dark spaces for assassins to hide, child's play!_'

In the centre of the hall within a large ring of candles there was a device hidden by a piece of dark silk cloth. The ring mistress had come from an area hidden by long dark curtains. She was dressed and made up in a kind traditional and cultural storytelling or operatic outfit. It truly suited the ambiance of the place.

Drums began to beat with a seemingly familiar thump and click sound. It the beat was slightly monotonous, but no less eerie in its familiarity.

The matron of the event pulled the black silk cloth off of the device, all in conjunction to a particular rythym beating from the drums. The audience gasped with varying degrees of confusion, excitement and horror.

The device was something known as a ballista, made of wood and it looked old. It was a large awkward thing that could once have been mounted on a cart or low wagon for ease of transport. It was a form of mounted cross-bow, much too large to be carried and fired by a regular human, but something that a couple of people can man, in order to set the string or action in its ready-to-fire position and lock it in place.

The trigger was unique in the fact that there was a chain and a bowl attached to the chain. Its purpose was not yet known to the expectant audience.

The arrows for such a device were large and very dangerous. The arrow for this one was long and metallic, as the hostess revealed it. She place it on the device, cocked the spring mechanism back, as her target, a wooden cut-out of a human with a red painted heart was placed in front of the ballista.

The hostess raised her hands quickly and all was silent. People seemed to breathe loudly around John, as they all watched with anticipation of what would happen next. The woman took a single white feather from her headdress and then dropped it gently into the bowl that dangled from the weapon's ancient trigger mechanism.

"SSH-THOCK!"

The audience gasped. Their excited murmurs and mutters were accompanied by the beats of the drums once more. The sounds coming from them created the darker atmosphere.

The arrow had raced and slammed into the painted heart. The feather proved that the trigger was so sensitive that it wouldn't take much for the device to fire.

The Hostess or Mistress of the ceremony retrieved the over-sized arrow. From the shadows a masked warrior entered the arena. He was all in black, short and muscular.

"I think I know what's coming," John whispered to Sarah, as they watched the warrior stand against the target and be tied with thick cords of rope which prevent his movement.

"Dear God," Sarah whispered in horror. "What are they going to do?"

"Ancient Chinese escapology act," Sherlock informed them. "The crossbow is on a delicate spring, as demonstrated. The warrior has to escape his bonds before it fires."

"Well," John observed with a sly grin to Sherlock, over Sarah's head. "That sounds like ideal entertainment for a Friday night." The music crashed like the sound of a tinny gong.

Sarah jumped, but she was pleased to note that she wasn't the only one. The emotions of the others in the room were treading a bit too close to her comfort, but it was interesting that she received no emotional data from Sherlock and not much more from John. A definite clue to their compatibility for bonding she believed.

The audience watched the string of the bow being pulled back. The tension rose as the anticipation of the dreaded event grew.

From the ceiling a long golden rope was lowered with a sandbag attached to the bottom end of it. The rope itself was on a pulley system with a large weight attached to the other end of the rope. What they all saw was unmistakable.

"They'll split the sandbag," Sherlock explained in a low voice. "The sand will pour out and the weight will lower, until it reaches that bowl. It's a classic act."

"I think I would have been happy with a bit of juggling and other acts," John said. "Don't quite like clowns though." He shuddered in remembrance of old childhood birthday parties. He'd always thought it creepy to have clowns around.

"It's about to start," Sherlock observed.

And so it was, as the warrior was fully strapped to the target board and the arrow returned to its firing position. The matron of the ceremony took out a wicked looked knife, pierced the sandbag with it and all watched, as the sand flowed out of the sack. The weight lowered very slowly to the waiting bowl.

The drummer started with thumps and clicks in a rythym that increased rapidly. The tone was set and the beat nearly matched the warrior's struggle to free himself, as much as to match the rapid breathing audience.

'_The struggles are for show,_' Sherlock thought. '_There...that's predictable. The seeming inability to move in the beginning and there it is, that small glance at the bag to gauge his timing. Now more showmanship struggle, the ropes have loosened a fraction or two._'

The audience was caught up in the drama of it, but the Consulting Detective noticed that John did not look worried or concerned. '_Must be registering the warrior's heartbeat,_' he thought. '_I don't believe I made the right decision by inviting that woman here. She seems a little too clingy to my John._'

Sarah was indeed clingy with John's arm, but that was because she was fearful. The emotions of the others were catching up to her in faint, ominous whispers against her empathic psyche.

Just as many thought the worst, with their eyes flicking back and forth rapidly from the falling sand, the downward motion of the weight and the warrior, the whole thing was soon over. The warrior dropped his binding ropes and took a single step to the side, as the arrow, thunked once more into the wooden target behind him.

The crowd broke out in applause and cheers for having witnessed the event.

John didn't need to look up to know that Sherlock had left him there in the crowd and with Sarah. '_Gone to track the warrior, no doubt_,' he thought and turned a small smile to the woman attached to his arm for the evening.

"Where's," she started to ask.

"Not far," John said. "Don't worry about him. He'll be back," he told her cheerily, but she did catch the additional dark mutter, "He'd better be."

The audience looked up at the start of the next act.

"Ladies and gentlemen, from the distant moonlit shores of the Yangtze river," the costumed hostess said. "We present for your pleasure..." She points up, "The deadly Chinese bird spider."

An extremely long length of silk drops to the floor and the acrobat that was twisted up in it began his exotic moves and dance with the fanciful cloth.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

Meanwhile Sherlock was disgruntled by the sight of the warrior mask that he'd jammed back onto the mannequin after a temporary fright. He now looked for more evidence of the Circus troupe's involvement with the murders of Van Coon, Lukis and Soo Lin. Through the curtains he noticed the spider act and muttered, "Well, well!"

Sherlock darted back and away, behind some object to hide his presence, when he'd heard footsteps headed in his general direction. He looked around and by his foot he found a small kit bag on the floor that contained tiny dabs of yellow paint on the handle. He unzipped it and reached inside. He pulled out an aerosol can of the exact type he'd been looking for.

The footsteps that had sent him into hiding... left the area. He rose from his position, faced a mirror and sprayed with the can. The yellow paint was unmistakeable. Dripping and yellow, he grinned.

"Found you," he said softly with unconcealed glee. He was about to leave, but as per normal for him, he glanced at everything in the room. It was the best way to not be surprised and the best way to confirm if something had been changed.

He looked again and this time his eyes landed on the masked mannequin. '_Something's different about it. It was what...only a few minutes ago? Did it have hands the first time around? Feet?_' His gaze returned to the hands, '_Was that sword there the first time around? Those footsteps, did someone really come in and leave or did someone just come in, do a dramatic quick change and stay behind?_'

The noise from the drums drowned out the warrior yell from backstage. However John heard it and yet he knew that his flatmate would be fine. At least he hoped so, because his own movements were being monitored by the Hostess and she wasn't being coy about it either. He had to stay where he was.

Sherlock dodged the descending sword and then knocked it out of the fake warlord's hands. He took his stance. He fought and defended using hand-to-hand semi-expertly. He had been hoping to make the man before him fall for that fake '_Watch Out_' trick, but this one was too smart for it. He received a punch in the gob instead. He fumbled with the spray can and used it across his attacker's eyes.

The mock Chinese warlord, found his sword and swung it with such force, aimed for Sherlock's head that as the tall man moved out of the way, the weapon was imbedded in the fake plaster wall behind him.

Sherlock seized the moment of impact and charged at his assailant in a rugby tackling move worthy of the blockheads he'd seen on telly. Together they crashed through the back drop curtains and hidden change area into the candle lit area of the presentation space.

The members of the crowd were momentarily stunned, as they watched to men, one in costume and one that looked like an attendee to the event.

"John," Sherlock shouted.

His flatmate moved with the speed of a soldier and dove into the fray. He extricated his Guide and managed to land a few bruising swings against the warlord. However one punch from the warlord, John was sent backwards tangled into the old curtains, which came down with a crash and a heap of dust flying everywhere. He sneezed several times, but was unable to get free to help his friend.

Sarah was not very noticeable and she took advantage of that in order to knock the warrior out before running over to help John out of his predicament. Which basically meant; that she freed him from the tangle and brought him into close proximity to Sherlock, so that he could get his senses regulated.

Sherlock placed John's hand on his shoulder and allowed the man to anchor himself there, as he ripped the shoe off of the downed warlord. There on the bottom of the attacker's heel was the mark of the Tong, the Black Lotus.

However the man on the floor was not knocked unconscious. He was merely stunned and kicked away from the tall, Londoner, before he staggered away in a dizzy stumble that it looked like he was drunk rather than partially injured. He waved his sword in a manner that was meant to be menacing, but it fell flat, since the image projected was that of a child learning to walk while handling a big, sharp object.

The Mistress or Hostess of that night appeared suddenly and pointed something in John's direction. He placed himself, firmly in front of Sherlock, thinking that the woman was pointing a gun. He was blinded by the flash of a camera phone instead. He recalled seeing her before and wondered just why the hell she needed his picture.

Most of the troupe had disappeared and the fake warlord was still bent on attacking them, so the three decided that the better part of valour would be to leave the vicinity.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

They returned to Baker Street after having visited the Police Station and the investigator in charge. They'd been disappointed that the police couldn't find anything of value at the old theatre where the small group had witnessed the odd performances.

John made them tea. "They'll be back in China by tomorrow."

"They won't leave," Sherlock replied. "Not without finding what they came for. We need to find their hideout...a rendezvous point...something." He looked at the large poster sized message he'd tacked to the wall. "Somewhere in this message, it must tell us."

"Anybody hungry," John asked.

"I could do with something to make up for that excitement," Sarah said.

Sherlock grimaced at the thought of food. He stood in front of the cipher and studied it. Meanwhile Sarah looked through some of the papers on the desk and found the same list of numbers on a smaller sheet of paper.

Her comments in an attempt to get Sherlock to talk to her result in them discovering that Soo Lin had started the translation, but only left them with two words, '_Nine_' and '_Mill_'.

"Nine million quid..., for what," Sherlock questioned. "We need the end of that sentence." He stood up and rushed to the door. He couldn't stick around for anything else and he felt that he had to be doing something.

"Where are you going," John asked. He wasn't ready to run around London again, especially not with Sarah in tow.

"To the museum," Sherlock said. "There must be something in the restoration room or office that we missed. Only three of the books match up, but nothing that referenced those two first words of the whole cipher. Incompetent plodders must have dropped one or not even been to her place of work to collect her books."

"She might not have had a specific one there," John replied. "It could just as well be inventoried with her possessions back at the Yard."

"I have to go look for that book, John," Sherlock said. "That book is the key to cracking the cipher. Soo Lin used it while we were at the museum with her. It must still be there. It has to be." He left them there.

John shrugged at Sarah's questioning expression. "He's always running off like that when he gets an idea into his head. I don't always follow when that happens."

"Why ever not," Sarah asked.

"Sometimes it's best to let him go on his own," John replied, as he served her something from the platter the Mrs. Hudson had brought up when she'd heard him banging around looking for something edible to serve their guest, something other than plain toast.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

Meanwhile Sherlock had run out of the museum, hands empty. '_Why the hell did they take everything and not bring them to me, I specifically told them I needed __**all**__ of the books, not just what was in the girl's flat._'

He ran down the steps and collided with a touristy German couple, knocking a book out of their hands. They were slightly upset, but Sherlock just picked up the book and with English apologies he said, "Sorry...sorry."

Sherlock took four quick steps to reach the corner of the street when his mind registered the book that the German tourists were looking at. His mind opened up and more information from what he remembered or recalled came to the forefront of his mind. '_THE BOOK,_' he thought and there it was. '_Lukis had a copy of it in his flat, one of the top ones from several stacked in his stair entrance. Van Coon...by his phone._' He paused and then remembered, '_Soo Lin had one in the Restoration Room, but it's not there now!_'

He looked around and noticed that several Japanese tourists had copies in their backpacks and poking out of their pockets. '_Van Coon had a second copy in his office, which seemed odd at the time, but now it makes sense! They all had '__**London A to Z**__', it's a book that everyone's got in their library, I mean even I have one, since some landmarks and names change overtime. It's so logical that they should have one, it didn't even occur to me that that would be the book that Chinese mafia would use as a source for communication. What an idiot I am!_'

Sherlock muttered, "Everyone carries it. No one would think twice if they saw it. It's...an invisible book." He turned back and ran after the German couple to seize their book and use it to decipher the code. This time he said to them, (...Sorry, it's important to my case. I need to borrow it for a few moments...)

(...Keep it, you crazy Englishman...) The German said after he looked to his female companion, who nodded to him to let Sherlock have the book.

"Ve have another," the woman told him in accented English and they left him to his task of figuring out the message.

"Danke," Sherlock replied, as he left to sit at some outside café, flipping the pages of the book and writing down the meaning of the code, word per word. More importantly he figured out that the page fifteen and first word meant '**Dead man**'.

"You were threatening to kill them," Sherlock muttered. "That's the first, but what's the rest..."

'_Nine', 'Mill', 'Fore', 'Jade', 'Pin', 'Dragon', 'Den', 'Black', 'Tramway'_

"Nine mill for jade pin. Dragon den black tramway," Sherlock stated in a soft voice. "Jade pin..." His mind flashed to an image of a cheap looking hairpin, but had soon realized that that it hadn't been a fake little plastic thing. He tucked the book and papers away into the deep pockets of his coat. He raced back to his flat.

'_John,_' he thought with a huff. '_I need John for this._'

Sherlock arrived at 221B and raced up the stairs. "John," he said. "I've got it. The key to the cipher, it's the London A to Z. That's what they're using...John?"

He charged through the door in his excitement, but stilled immediately when he received no reply. His mind focussed on all the details his eyes took in. He blanched when his eyes turned to the mark on the window.

A Chinese character 15, followed by the Chinese character for the number 1, all in yellow drippy aerosol paint on the main window of their flat.

_**Dead Man**_

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

**TBC...**


	9. Chapter 9

**CH 9**

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

John woke feeling concussed. He was slumped in a chair and could smell blood. He heard a soft crying sound nearby, but he had to get control of his senses before he could take stock of where he was and '_What the bloody hell was going on,_' he thought.

He blinked a few times and heard the heartbeats of four extra people. He could smell that Sarah was near him and thought, '_She's probably the one crying. I don't think that she can talk or else she'd have been trying to get my attention by now._'

He blinked a few more times and soon his eyes adjusted to the eerie ambience made even creepier by the fact that the place was being illuminated by candles. He noted that there were old tram tracks, but it was obvious by the disrepair of the tunnel that it had been years since a tram had passed this way.

His hearing was assaulted by the loud heartbeats, which were sometimes cut by the higher pitched dripping of water that '_Plipped_' into the puddles of water beneath them. He focussed on his dials and gauges. Luckily he was still wearing Sherlock's scarf and was able to ground his senses in that in order to be able to regain his focus on the situation.

In front of them, the Hostess of the Circus, pulled out a phone and took another picture of John. She then said, "A book is like a magic garden, carried in your pocket."

John looked confused. '_What the bloody hell is that bitch playing at?_'

"Chinese proverb, Mr. Holmes," she explained.

John's eyes widened, "I'm not actually..." He felt dizzy, '_Probably from a concussion, remember this from my rugby days._' But he just continued with his statement, "I'm not Sherlock Holmes."

The woman in charge walked over to him and took his wallet. She pulled out the debit card and said, "Name; Sherlock Holmes."

"Ah," John said. "That's not actually mine. He leant that to me..."

She found a bank statement with the name of Sherlock Holmes. She also found the envelope with the name of Sherlock Holmes on the front that contained the ticket stubs for the Circus. "Tickets," she said. "Collected by you and with the name of Holmes."

"Yes...okay," John replied. "I realize how this looks, but honestly, I'm not..."

"Do not toy with me," the woman said, as she threw the papers, wallet and tickets in his face. She pulled out a gun and pointed it at his temple. "Three times we've tried to kill you and your companion: the flat in Chinatown; the museum and tonight at the theatre. What does that tell you when an assassin cannot shoot straight?"

"You're not really trying," John replied, and the woman pulled the trigger. All that came from the gun was an ominous click.

"Correct," she replied with nod and an unfriendly smile. "I am Shan."

"You," John stated. "You're the Mountain?"

"Shan is two words in Chinese," Shan replied with a dark chuckle. "It also means 'The elegant'." She rounded on him and waved the gun in his face. "Blank bullets were fired at the museum. At Soo Lin's flat, you and your companion were allowed to go free."

John snorted softly at that comment, but allowed her to continue with her delusion of _that_ scenario. He'd been prepared to kill the assassin because they'd endangered his Guide. The outcome of that situation was not as certain as she was making it out to be.

Shan ignored him and continued, "Tonight at the theatre, if we had wanted to kill you Mr. Holmes, we'd have done it by now. We just wanted you inquisitive." She waved the gun again and said, "Nothing like firing a gun at someone to make them think they're on the trail of something special. We haven't found what we seek, but no matter. Now we have our own sniffer dog, in you, Sherlock Holmes."

She sniffed at him and he leaned back and away from her with an expression of disgust on his face. She frowned and then said, "The rat who gnaws at the tail of the cat only invites destruction."

"Proverb," John asked in a tone that was planned to irritate her.

"Do you have it," she asked.

John blinked, "Have...what?"

"The treasure," she said.

"I don't know what you're talking about," John replied.

Shan smiled and said, "I prefer to make certain." She used a battery torch to light up another section of the tunnel. She showed them a very familiar shape, covered dramatically with dark cloth. "See!"

One of her henchman pulled the cloth off of the machine and exposed the old ballista.

"I've already seen that performance," John quipped. "Thanks anyway."

She poked at his injury with the muzzle of her gun and forced him to look in another direction. She nodded her head and said, "Everything in the west has its price."

John watched as Sarah and the chair that she'd been tied to was placed directly in the path of the arrow. He winced at the sharp sound of the chair being dragged against the uneven ground. Again he regulated his hearing, until he could make out what the Tong General was saying.

"So," Shan said. "The price for her life...information," she leaned close and whispered in his ear. "Where is the hairpin?"

John looked at Sarah. Her eyes were wide with the fear of the situation. She looked back, but screamed from behind her gag when the device was cocked and the deadly arrow placed in its groove.

"The Empress' pin," Shan asked.

"What?" John asked.

"Valued at nine million sterling," the evil woman explained. "We already had a buyer in the west and one of our people got greedy. He took it. Brought it back to London and you, Mr. Holmes, you have been searching..."

"Please," John looked to Sarah, horrified at the thought that they'd been sent on this chase by the Tong. "Please you have to believe me. I'm not Sherlock Holmes. I haven't found what you're looking for because I haven't deciphered the code."

The Mistress of Ceremony was back and the woman looked around with mocked theatrics. "I need a volunteer." She looked at Sarah and said, "Ah, thank you lady. I think you'll do nicely, very nicely!"

She slashed the sandbag and watched the sand pour from it. She turned and smiled at John. "Thank you for volunteering."

John had had enough and his senses flared, as the presence of one he cared for entered the area. The enemy was in front of him and he played the captive for them. He moved and struggled with a plan. His jacket was old and familiar. Since he'd worked with Sherlock on a few cases with varying degrees of danger he'd prepared several smallish blades, tucked within the seams of his coat sleeves and the bottom edge of his coat. An old trick that he'd retained from his stint the Army.

He managed to get a smallish '_exacto_' knife blade out and begin the sawing motions to release the ropes that bound him to the chair. His struggles looked like he protested the fact that he was not Sherlock, all the while he focussed on the woman and the dramatics that she continued to play.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the mistress of ceremony said. "From the distant moonlit shores, we present, for your pleasure, Sherlock Holmes' pretty companion, in a death-defying act."

"Stop this," John shouted and pleaded. "Please!"

"You've seen this act before," Shan said, as she placed a small black paper flower in Sarah's lap. "How dull for you, you know how it ends."

John's senses sharpened. His hands are almost free and he shouted, "I'm not Sherlock."

"I don't believe you," Shan, the general shouted back.

"You should, you know," a deep voice came from behind John. "Sherlock is a great deal more pompous, with a '_U_'. And a great deal more...what was the other word, John?"

"Late," John replied with a huff, like he'd say the word '_Imperious_' in this setting.

Sherlock swung some kind of metal pipe and knocked out the henchman that had played the warlord at the theatre. This time the man was out cold. He rushed forward to save Sarah, but the leader, Shan, raised her gun and had it pointed at him.

He stopped in his tracks. He looked at it and then said, "A semi-automatic, you fire it and the bullet will travel a thousand metres per second."

"So?" Shan sneered, her question.

"So," Sherlock explained. "These walls have a radius of curvature of nearly four metres. If you miss, then the bullet will ricochet." This made the woman pause. "Who knows where? You could hit anyone. The bullet could very well bounce around the tunnel and hit you."

"I have no intention of missing," she said.

"Still," Sherlock said. "I'd take those glasses off. Can't shoot straight in the dark..." He kicked over the largest candle holder, extinguishing the flames. He quickly dove into the shadows, behind an oil drum of all things.

John released the ropes from his torso and arms. He moved out of the way by bending down and quickly cutting his legs free from the chair.

Shan fired and the bullet did ricochet around the tunnel, just like Sherlock had predicted.

John raced to Sarah and toppled her chair over in order to prevent her from getting hit by the arrow, while he undid her bindings. "Stay put," he said, as he swung the ballista around to aim it at the heart of the acrobatic '_Spider_', who'd suddenly been trying to strangle Sherlock once more. The arrow flew, as John raced towards Shan and knocked the gun out of her hands.

She was an expert martial artist, but her opponent knew a few moves that kept him from getting killed from the viciousness of her attack. In the dimness she realized that she needed to escape and she did so when John was distracted by the death of the assassin, who had once been Soo Lin's older brother.

John watched the woman leave, but not before he'd picked her pocket for the ruddy phone that had taken pictures of him. He was certain that Sherlock would like the emails and texts that it contained or at least the man's older brother would. He pocketed it for future study.

He then picked up the gun and found that the man in the warlord outfit was still unconscious. He fired one shot in the man's head, killing him instantly. He'd startled the other two in the tunnel with the sound of the gunshot.

"Danger to the Guides," he muttered softly, wondering if Shan heard him, but he knew that she wasn't a Sentinel because she never had that genetic scent and feel that he associated with Active and GNA Sentinels. She'd had a murderer's scent though. The doctor just looked at the body of the henchman and said, "Justified termination of life!"

John then raced over to Sherlock in order to examine him. "You all right," he asked. He leaned in to sniff and lick the tortured neck. "I hope you found that bloody pin she babbled about because I'm ready for this case to be over."

"Yeah, well," Sherlock shivered in reaction to the tongue on his bruising neck. "Save that for later, Sentinel."

"You will be mine, Guide," John said, as his hand wrapped around his flatmate's wrist.

"Yes," Sherlock agreed with a shake of his arm. He wasn't trying to dislodge the grip, but test its purpose, he supposed. He felt the fingers tighten for a moment and then loosen, but remain latched to his wrist. '_Ah,_' he thought. '_Fingers grounding on touch and the pulse point._' He became amused when he suddenly realized that his scarf had changed colours sometime within that darkened tunnel encounter.

John turned to his boss and asked, "All right, Sarah."

"All right," she replied in a shaky tone of voice. "Could one of you get me off this bloody ground, though?"

"Police and such are on their way," Sherlock informed them, as they helped release the woman from her bonds.

"Right then," John said to them. "Let's just move out of this darkness then and let them do what they need to do to sort out this scene."

Several minutes later, flashing blue lights and rolls of police tape cordoned off the entrance of the old tramway tunnels. Sarah had one of those hideous orange shock blankets wrapped around her, grateful for its warmth.

John and Sherlock walk out of the tunnel. They were close enough to touch, but the Doctor had finally released his flatmate's wrist.

Sherlock looked to the youngish DI and said, "We'll just slip off then. No need to mention us in the report."

"Mr. Holmes..." Dimmock's voice trailed off, as though he didn't know what to say or what he wanted to say.

"I have high hopes for you, Inspector," Sherlock informed him. "A glittering career!"

Dimmock then realized that the man was right, if he continued to do one thing and so he responded, "If, I go where you point me."

"Exactly," Sherlock looked back with a grin.

Dimmock received an eye roll and grin from Dr. Watson, as the two men walked away from the area.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

Back at 221B Baker street, John was not about to put off bonding with his Guide any longer. He just had to make sure. "So," he said. "You figured it out!"

"Yes," Sherlock said in a shuddering tone, as the look he received, registered in some place in his psyche as something that he'd been looking for most of his activated life.

"Good!" John replied with a hungry look. "I'm going to take a shower first and then you can since you didn't spend your time getting dragged about in questionable places." He looked at his flatmate's frowning expression. "You don't want to?"

Sherlock looked up quickly and answered, "Yes, yes I would, but why separate showers?"

"Ah," John replied, as he rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't know that I could hold myself back and I don't want the primary bond to take place in the shower. From what I've read, we'll be merging some of our psyche together and we may need time to recover."

"I look forward to it," Sherlock replied in a deep tone. He gazed at John with half-lidded eyes. His mind already miles ahead of the event and his look said it all.

John smirked and ran up the stairs to ensure that he had the shower first. He stripped completely on the way, not concerned that he'd exposed himself to Sherlock. He knew that the man watched his progress.

He was in his room and listening for his Guide after he'd completed his shower. He hoped that Sherlock would be ready for what being his Guide meant and then again, he hoped that everything they chose to do together would not follow the norms of the SC and GC.

'_It'd be boring,_' he thought with a grin. He inhaled, looked up quickly, as he noticed the clean scent of his nude flatmate standing in his doorway. "Sherlock," he exhaled. He saw his friend's eyes widen when the man noted the effect he was having on the Sentinel. "Come here," he said. "Please!"

"John," Sherlock swallowed. His confidence slipping a little from the intense gaze he was being subjected to. He delighted in it, but was slightly terrified too. The intimacy of the connection he was about to forge, scared him.

"For every Sentinel out there," John said. "There is a Guide made just for them. You are not lacking in anything and these past few months, we have a good idea of how it's going to be, don't you think."

"I do nothing, but think," Sherlock snorted out, but it had been the right thing for the Doctor to say. He walked over to the bed, took a deep breath of his own and gazed back at the Sentinel there. His own gaze looked the man over and he was pleased with everything he saw. He wanted to study the man and yet each move showed him something new to study. "You are fascinating."

John held out his hand. He watched those long, agile fingers connect with his own and the brushing of the finger pads gave him the shivers, as his sense of touch sharpened. He curled his hand around that of his friend and Guide, tugged him into the bed and together they explored their forming bond.

"Oh," Sherlock gasped at one moment and then the physical world dropped away and together they were pulled into a monochrome wasteland of rolling dunes. Gale force sand storms, mixed with half risen ancient structures and old, twisted, dry living trees dotted the landscape.

He flew over those dunes, hooting a plaintive cry. He searched and sought something that he'd been looking for most of his life and there in the distance he saw something interesting. It looked like small domesticated cat, but this one was vastly different in colour and he'd almost missed it because of the sand dune.

It was headed in the direction of a stone outcropping. It looked at him and then at the outcropping.

Sherlock let out a sound that indicated they'd meet there.

John walked in the sand on all fours. He was small for a predatory feline, but he was comfortable with his size. He had always been comfortable with it. He looked at the flashy and beautiful barn owl that had found him. He looked at it and then looked at the single building wall that had appeared in front of him. He heard the owl hoot and the wings flap, as it flew through the air.

He arrived shortly after the owl had settled on the outcropping. He hopped up onto the ledge and walked towards the owl. The owl turned its head to look at him. They were of a height together, but there was an acceptance of their similarities and their differences.

The sand cat's ears twitched in the direction of the two additional heartbeats and the owl's head twisted to look directly behind them.

"John," Sherlock said in a questioning tone.

"I told you before," John said with an intense look that had his Guide shuddering. "It's all fine."

The sand cat walked into the owl and the owl leaned into the sand cat. The two merged together and in that instance John experienced moments of Sherlock's otherness, the brilliancy of his mind and the loneliness it caused.

Sherlock learned about some of the things that made John, his John. He was pleased to know in the deepest sense that the man had been truthful about his ideas on bonding, that there was always a perfect Guide for each activated Sentinel.

John learned about Sherlock's poor University days and the disappointments that had occurred, as his Guide's preconceptions of such places had been stripped away by the boorishness of the many that attended those institutions.

Sherlock learned about how John was in the war. How the man blended as soldier and a doctor at the same time. He was humbled by the core that held him and steadied his mind. He was accepted and that was enough. He wanted to learn the rest on his own and in his own time.

John looked at him in the dream place and agreed. He leaned forward and kissed his Guide. Then he made Sherlock bend his head, as he said, "I'll mark you, as mine for everyone to see."

"Yes," Sherlock exhaled and leaned into the smaller, solid rock of a man. "Please!"

John bit him high enough under his left ear. It was a sensitive spot, but it was also a very visible one. The mark would fade over time, but the imbedded scent marker, a quirk of genetics, would remain there until the day of Sherlock's death. It was a marker that indicated he'd been claimed and that no other Sentinel could take him as a Guide.

Sherlock's active mind, shuddered to a temporary halt, as his body registered the bond and the needle pin-pricks of venom pooled in his neck, which merged with the Guide genes. They mixed and mingled in a way that was unmistakeable. They were bonded, a unit unto themselves and one that no one could challenge, not even the Government.

His mind didn't remain idle long after that because his thoughts immediately turned to what his Sentinel would do, if challenged. '_He'd win,_' he thought. '_Never mind that, he'd decimate them and I'd be cheering him on from the sidelines, as long as I could analyze the DNA of the challenger._'

'_Of course you can,_' John thought. He laughed in his mind and said, '_We're still connected and from what I've been able to read on the subject, this is a one-time deal._'

'_Good,_' Sherlock thought back, as he felt the man move physically inside him once more. '_Are you insatiable or something?_'

'_I'm everything for my Guide,_' John purred. '_My Guide is everything for me, but to answer your question, no... I'm not insatiable. I'm just happy and quite ready to have another go. Besides I'm still latched by my teeth._'

'_Yes, I can feel that,_' Sherlock groaned, as his sensitized neck turned into an erogenous zone of intense pleasure. '_I hope you realize that I've never been that sexually active._'

'_Yep,_' John replied. '_Like I told you that first time at Angelo's, it's __**all**__ fine_.'

Sherlock grinned and then said, '_As long as there is no case..._'

'_Right then,_' John said. '_It'll be like your meals, but hopefully if you can't see the forest from the trees you'd be willing to take a break and let me turn your mind to more carnal things. We'll have to experiment on whether sex can shut down that big brain of yours long enough to give it a little re-boot._'

He felt the questioning interest, especially since he said the magic word that usually made Sherlock sit up and beg..._Experiment_, how that man loved the word. '_I mean we'll see if you'll get inspired to think on a tricky case and gain a new direction after a bout of thoroughly focussed, body tingling sex._'

Sherlock's body showed him that it was indeed possible to have a brain shut-down, since his mind was thoroughly engaged at cataloguing the sensations of their second sexual round. He quickly found that his mind stuttered in the process and eventually he gave up on the whole of it to just experience the feel of the carnality of it all.

'_Agreed,_' he thought back. '_We'll have to test that...later..._'

John just grinned, as the marking barbs popped away from their connection to his body, like the stingers of some bees and wasps. The small barbs were sucked into Sherlock's neck, where they would break down within a week's time and become part of the bone structure of his Guide's anatomy.

They gasped and shouted their completion.

John collapsed on his companion and Sherlock was limp from the exertion. Their minds were no longer connected, but their bond was there, very much there, and nearly tangible.

John pulled away slowly and used the damp towel he'd brought up with him in order to clean them off. His Guide looked at him with sleepy eyes and asked, "Tomorrow soon enough to go to Seb's office and tell him the result of the case?"

"Yeah," John replied with a chuckle. "It's soon enough." He pulled up the blankets and covers of his bed and wrapped them around his Guide. They curled into one another. "A long nap and then a meal first, though," he stated through a yawn.

"Of course John," Sherlock replied in an equally sleepy tone.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

**TBC...**


	10. Chapter 10

**CH 10**

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

The next morning they were seated at the breakfast nook table that John had bought on the cheap. It was safer to not eat on the larger table where Sherlock conducted much of his home experiments.

"So you figured it out," John said. "Nine Mill..."

"Million," Sherlock interrupted with his need for precision.

"Right," John said with a smile that he couldn't help. He was bonded to his Guide and Sherlock looked back at him with a smirk, as though he knew what the good doctor had on his mind. "Nine Million For Jade Pin Dragon Den Black Tramway."

"Instructions," Sherlock confirmed. "Located there because it's unnoticeable, but also located in the likeliest of places for their operatives to see the message to reclaim their lost treasure."

"A jade pin," John asked.

Sherlock nodded and continued, "One worth nine million pounds. They were to bring it to that tramway location, which had obviously been their '_secret_' hideout. Clever that!"

"Right," John said. "But just a hair pin, it can't be worth nine million pounds, can it?"

"Apparently," Sherlock agreed.

"Why so much," John asked. The value of it alone, had him in shock. All that they'd gone through for a measly little hair pin.

"Depends who owned it first," Sherlock replied.

"Empress...," John's voice answered in a low tone, which earned him a raised eyebrow from his Guide. "That's what that General Shan woman had said. They were looking for the Empress' pin."

Sherlock's expression flipped from curiosity to surprise and then to glee. "We need to go the bank again."

"Again," John asked.

"Of course," Sherlock replied. "We've solved Seb's case," he grimaced at the name of his old school acquaintance. "I really don't want to see him."

"What about seeing him in the manner you do most of the officers of the Yard that you don't like," John said. "What if you walk in and blurt out that you've solved the case, tell him that I'll explain it and then leave just as briskly."

Sherlock absolutely perked up at that and said, "Good plan, but first a shower and then another round in that bed of yours. Nothing too vigorous mind, I still need to get used to it."

"Loads of other things we can do," John nodded in agreement, as parts of him perked up at the thought of leaving more scent markers on his newly bonded Guide. But he was alone in at the table by then, as he heard the plumbing start up.

He looked at the breakfast table thinking to be able to finish the last of his toast, but heard the demanding call of his Guide, "What are you waiting for John? Get in here!"

"Right," John muttered. "He's going to be just as pushy in this too!" He grinned and then stalked towards his waiting Guide and the steaming water of their private shower.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

Later that morning they strode into the Shad Anderson building again, only this time with the purpose of concluding their business with the day trader, one Sebastian Wilkes.

Sherlock had just finished explaining that the true thief of the pin had been Van Coon and not Lukis.

"Why not Lukis," John asked.

"Because of the soap," Sherlock stated, but never fully explained that once they were in the building.

They walked through the doors and immediately the Sentinels noticed changes in the two men. Their senses told them that these two were a fully bonded pair now. John looked at them, nodded once and received a similar nod in kind.

Sherlock noticed the exchange, but relegated it to the part of his brain that catalogued it as something that Sentinels just do. He'd seen it before and so it wasn't as remarkable as it should have been.

"Ah Sebastian," Sherlock said, as he just walked through the door of the man's office with John following and grinning at his flatmate's theatrical mannerisms. It was riveting to watch. "We've solved your security issue. Please make the check out to Dr. John Watson here," he motioned in John's direction. "He'll explain everything. Sorry got to dash. I've an important meeting to get to." He left just as quickly as he'd entered the room.

"He's been bonded," Sebastian stated. He couldn't keep the surprised, or was that shocked expression off his face and out of his voice. The mark on the man's neck had been noted, including the prominent scent marker.

"Hmm," John nodded. "Your intruder was an assassin seeking to scare your Hong Kong, night trader. He scaled the outside of the building and came in through the chairman's balcony entrance."

Sebastian snorted in disbelief, "What was he, some sort of spider man?"

"No," John replied. "In fact, he was a Chinese acrobat."

"What," Sebastian nearly shouted. "Now listen here, I'm not one to put up with fanciful stories..."

"It's the truth," John replied in a tone that told the other man not to argue with him. "Think of the silk climbers in the Circ du Soleil. They can roll up or down the silken cloth with incredible agility. Someone climbed to the top of this building and either some maintenance worker let him in or they used a stolen access card. The man only had to secure the silk cloth and roll down to the nearest balcony."

"But then how did they get in..."

"The balcony doors are not in your security system," John interrupted him. He walked over to Seb's door and opened it, without the use of a card or it registering on their expensive data system. "You really should update your computer program. What if one of your traders takes it into their heads to commit suicide by jumping from this building? You'll never know who it was or when they did it."

"Bloody hell," Sebastian said. "I'd never..." He coughed and then composed his surprise. "I'll let the senior partners know about this." He pulled out his check book and started to write down a number.

John's eyes focussed on what the man was writing and then he said, "Double it."

"I beg your pardon," Sebastian said.

"You gave Sherlock twelve thousand as down payment for his services," John said. "You told him that you'd double it upon conclusion. This is the conclusion, so twenty-four thousand it is."

"Ah," Sebastian said. "But this is being put into your name."

John grinned in such a way that Sebastian Wilkes knew he never wanted to meet this plain looking man in a dark alley or anywhere for that matter, as any kind of enemy. "If I was to ask for payment it'd be quadruple that amount," the doctor replied, as he stood with his hands behind his back, at parade rest. "Sentinel services do not come cheap, you know."

"Ah, right," Sebastian responded, a little cowed by the person before him. That's when he realized who had marked and bonded with Sherlock. "Twenty-four it is...Made out to Dr. John Watson, as per Sherlock's request." He wanted to hold it out for the man, but instead placed it on the desk. It was a status thing, really. A man that took the check from his hand would seem to be beholden or something, whereas a man that picked it up owed him nothing.

John had waited for the check to be put down. The banker already knew that the doctor was stronger in the devious sense, as their first handshake had proven. He watched as the man picked up the payment and pocketed it.

A shrieking squeal of happiness echoed throughout the building and startled him, whereas the Doctor standing before him, just stood there with his head cocked.

John, then just smiled and left the man there, as he said, "Have a nice day!"

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

When Sherlock had left Wilkes' office, he immediately went to see Van Coon's personal assistant. He walked into her office, as she'd just finished putting on a bit of lotion to prevent her hands from feeling dry.

"He gave you a present," Sherlock said.

"Oh hello," Amanda said to him.

"When he came back from China," Sherlock continued. "He gave you a little gift."

"How did you know that?"

"You weren't just his PA, were you," he stated.

She huffed and said, "Someone's been gossiping."

"No," he replied.

"Then..." Amanda hesitated. "I don't understand?"

"Hand soap, found back at his flat," Sherlock stated. "The kind that's sold with a moisturiser, in three hundred millilitre quantities, the bottle was almost finished."

Amanda looked confused. "Sorry?"

"I don't think Eddie Van Coon was the sort of chap who would buy himself scented hand soap," Sherlock explained to her with a wry grin. "Not unless he had a lady coming over. It's the same brand as that hand cream of yours."

They both looked at the innocuous bottle of scented lotion.

"I...I...look, it wasn't serious between us," she stammered. "It was over in a flash. Besides it could never last, he was my boss after all."

"What happened," Sherlock asked. "Why did you end it?"

Amanda shrugged, since he was right. She had been the one to end it. "I thought," she started. "I thought he was taking me for granted. He didn't appreciate me." She sighed and then continued. "He stood me up once too often. We'd plan to go away for the weekend and he'd just leave. Fly off to China at a moment's notice."

"He brought you a present from abroad to say sorry," Sherlock confirmed. "Can I just have a look at it?" He held out his hand and she placed a small, delicate looking hair pin of green in it.

"Said he bought it in a street market," Amanda commented on it.

"Oh I don't think that true," Sherlock replied. "I think he pinched it."

"Yeah," she nodded. "That's Eddie."

"Didn't know the value though," Sherlock said in a thoughtful tone. "Just thought that it would suit you."

"Oh," Amanda perked at the word '_value_'. She worked in a bank for a reason, even if she was a personal assistant rather than a day trader or one of the counter folk. "What's it worth?"

"Oh, about nine million pounds sterling," Sherlock told her.

"Oh my god," Amanda whispered.

"Very valuable historically," Sherlock continued conversationally. "There's always a finder's fee to these things."

"Oh...My GOD," she shrieked. "NINE MILLION, YES...YES...OH MY GOD!" He left her a card of where to go for the finder's fee and quickly left the woman in her ecstatic expressions of joy.

Sherlock joined up with his Sentinel, as the man left Sebastian's office. "Think she's happy?"

"Over a thousand years old," John commented with a shake of his head. "...and it's sitting on her bedside every night."

"He didn't know the value," Sherlock replied. "He didn't even know why they were chasing him."

John snorted and said, "Should have just got her a lucky cat."

Sherlock looked at him quickly and laughed. He received one in return, as they both stepped through the revolving door of the bank.

"So case over," John replied.

"Yep," Sherlock agreed.

"Want to help me with retraining," John asked.

"For how long," Sherlock asked.

"Three months," John said. "Intensive studies in Forensic Pathology," he paused and then said, "We'll have to go to the SC and the GC to register our bond too."

"We can go now," Sherlock replied in a happy tone of voice. He wanted to get it done before his brother even had any inkling about his changed situation.

"A real bank first," John said.

Sherlock nodded as he stood at the curb with his arm raised and hailed a taxi successfully, in a way that was envious of anyone, who'd ever been stuck trying to do the same. He basked in the gaze of his Sentinel, who looked at him like was someone special.

To any activated Sentinel, the Guide is special…precious beyond measure, and yes there is always one perfect Guide for every Sentinel.

Sherlock - Holmes - John - Watson

**END**

(...NOTE...) That's it. My muse decided that the train will stop here for a while. Don't know if another episode will be re-written, but who knows what's up with the muses these days. So far, nadda. Hope you enjoyed this tale.

Lil Nezumi


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